When Niobe catches Morpheus on the bonnet of her car during the climactic freeway fight of The Matrix Reloaded, the moment functions nicely as a surprise twist. For the most part, it gets away with attempting both, presenting different angles on sequences familiar from the movies. It’s a clear echo of the standout action scene from the original film (for which Perry turned down a game deal, not anticipating the phenomenon that would follow).Įnter The Matrix was a product of two different urges-one to dive from the rooftop after the established spectacle of the movies, and another to follow its own path. Yet, before you can leave that post office, the shutters come down and you’re pushed into a lobby firefight, pinwheeling out from behind pillars as bullets strip the marble from the walls. You’re planted in a US post office to pick up a tape containing the last transmission of the Osiris, so that you can hand it over to Zion-literally passing the baton from one medium to another. The very first level of Enter The Matrix reveals a tension in that premise.
Instead it was merely a switch in perspective, from the Nebuchadnezzar to another crew caught up within the machinations of Morpheus. For once a game adaptation was not a poor relation to its cinematic inspiration.
The Wachowskis wrote and directed an hour’s worth of cutscenes for Enter The Matrix, and it’s those that still represent its key draw. And after the conclusion of the trilogy, a Monolith-developed MMO officially took the story forward into the future-at least until 2009, when The Matrix Online was shut down. Then, Shiny’s game ran parallel to the film, embellishing and expanding on plot points referenced on-screen.
Their discovery, of a huge machine army drilling down into Zion, precipitated the events of The Matrix Reloaded. For The Animatrix, the Square studio behind Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within created the Final Flight of the Osiris-a photorealistic CG short that followed a doomed hovership crew much like Neo’s.