TITLE
The One: meeting the solo developer who took The Matrix Online to the end
AUTHOR
Robert Purchese
PUBLICATION
Eurogamer
YEAR
2021
ARTICLE TYPE
Interview
FROM THE ARTICLE
I was taken aback watching The Matrix 4 trailer earlier this month, because it’s been years since anything Matrix was exciting, and I’d forgotten how much it means to me. I really love that film (I am pretending there is only one of course). And seeing Keanu as Neo again sent shivers down my spine. And that moment where he and Carrie-Anne Moss meet in the trailer? Ooh ooh ooh.But where was Laurence Fishburne, where was Morpheus? Or was that Morpheus? No one seemed to be sure, though it didn’t take long for actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II to clarify that he is Morpheus in the new film. For some reason, Fisburne wasn’t invited to the reunion, but let’s not dwell on that. Because for one moment, amid all the speculation, something brilliant happened: people reached for an explanation from a game. And it was a game we hadn’t heard about for years: The Matrix Online.
[…]
It’s true. Morpheus was alive at the end of the films, but a few months into The Matrix Online, he was killed – with the Wachowskis’ blessing. What does that mean for the new films? Could this be the reason Morpheus has returned from the dead looking slightly different to before? And could there be something in the game which explains why Neo and Trinity are also back from the dead?
I wanted to find out more, and who better to tell me than the person, who, by the end of The Matrix Online’s operation, was pretty much running the game by himself? He’d create the storylines, implement them, and then bring them to life, embodying the characters involved in them. He’d play as the Agents, wielding fancy dev tools to enhance their abilities; he’d play as named characters from the films, like the Merovingian – remember him?; he’d even create powerful new characters of his own like the Apothecary, a character so deadly she could one-hit people with powerful kill codes.
He is our Architect, and his name is Ben Chamberlain. “I was the last full-time developer on the game.”
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Monolith Productions
GAMES MENTIONED
The Matrix Online
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Ben Chamberlain