When the third Matrix movie, Revolutions, launched in 2003, the collection’ time flourishing on the field workplace was ostensibly executed. As you properly know, nothing’s ever actually gone within the age of blockbuster franchise cinema, and now, we’re a month away from a fourth Matrix film. But the newest sequel was by no means truly the following chapter of the story after Revolutions—it was The Matrix Online. 

That was what the Wachowskis, again in 2005, actually thought of to be the continuation of the world that they had crafted over their film trilogy: a massively multiplayer on-line roleplaying sport (MMORPG) the place customers forged themselves as newly self-actualized people flung into the Megacity, the digital cityscape hub of the Matrix itself, after the occasions of Revolutions. The film collection ended with the cycle of reboots of the Matrix damaged because of a truce negotiated by Neo between the human remnants in Zion and the Machine City. The Matrix Online picks up within the wake of renewed conflicts between humankind and the machines—one which, if what cryptic glimpses of Resurrections we’ve seen up to now signifies, will have some wide-reaching ramifications within the new film.

What Was The Matrix Online?

Originally created by American online game developer Monolith Productions—and finally overseen by Daybreak Studios and Sony Online Entertainment after its launch—as an MMORPG within the vein of Everquest and World of Warcraft, The Matrix Online launched in 2005 with the blessings of Lana and Lilly Wachowski as an “inheritance” of the Matrix storyline. With the construction and cycle of the film saga’s worldbuilding specified by Reloaded and Revolutions, The Matrix Online was about as shut as audiences have been going to get to a brand new chapter of the franchise—the Wachowskis have been executed, the cycle of battle coated within the unique films had come to an in depth. But the sport imagined the rapid fallout of Revolutions’ ending and, throughout its 4 years of operation, the “Continuing Story” narrative that rolled out over weeks and months and years because it progressed paved the best way for a renewed cycle of battle.

Players in The Matrix Online—known as “Redpills,” woke up people who had change into conscious of the false nature of the Matrix—might be a part of certainly one of three emergent factions that had come to exist inside the digital actuality. Two of them have been apparent selections: One faction was Zion itself, the final surviving human metropolis in the actual world, who battle to guard redpills and their security inside and with out the Matrix itself. The different was the Machines, people aligning with the Matrix’s masters with the intention to keep the present established order and forestall “Bluepill” people nonetheless unaware of the Matrix’s true nature from being caught within the crossfire. The third faction was extra of a wild card, the Merovingian, working with the character from the movie to eschew the proxy wars between Zion and the Machines and defend the self-aware applications of the Matrix within the course of.

That battle picked up mainly proper the place Revolutions left off: Zion needed Neo’s physique again after he was left within the Machine City, however the Machine faction had no concept what had occurred to his bodily kind. When the sport was shut down completely in 2009, a lot of its dwelling historical past was misplaced, and the story had constructed as much as a climax that may by no means be seen by gamers… till possibly now. That is determined by if Resurrections actually does see Lana Wachowski decide to the concept the occasions of the sport matter to the broader Matrix universe.

What Happened to Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix Online?

Early on in The Matrix Online, Morpheus performs a serious position within the quest to try to retrieve Neo’s bodily kind. He additionally assisted gamers in recovering fragments of Neo’s “Residual Self Image,” or RSI (the time period for the digital avatar a human inhabits inside the Matrix), in order that they could possibly be reforged and produce the fabled “One” again to the digital actuality. Morpheus finally went rogue from all three faction bases, nevertheless, and in a bid to power the Machine City into returning Neo’s physique, started planting “code bombs” throughout the Matrix. While innocent to the digital types of redpilled gamers, the bombs would expose the code of the Matrix itself to bluepills, in an try and awaken them to the faux-reality and destabilize Machine management even additional, and maybe disable it altogether.

All three factions sought to both cease Morpheus from ending the Truce Neo had fought for along with his actions or defend the code bombs as they went off within the hopes it could create extra redpills. Then got here a serious twist. A mysterious masked program identified solely because the Assassin appeared and seemingly killed Morpheus. Each faction denied enjoying an element within the hit, however all of them briefly united in an try to determine who precisely had killed him—it didn’t final lengthy, after all. As relations broke down, the sport launched much more excessive factions gamers might align with because the battle between Zion and the Machine redpills turned much more heated. There was the Zion-adjacent “E Pluribus Neo,” or EPN, who believed in exposing the reality of the Matrix simulation to each human being, and the Cypherites, Machine-aligned redpills who needed to have their information erased and be returned to the Matrix.

Eventually, the sport’s storyline drew in direction of the trail of open battle between Zion and the Machines as soon as extra, when the latter found the existence of a brand new human metropolis in-built secret, aptly named New Zion, that Zion generals thought of a house for the ever-growing variety of people free of the Matrix. But no matter was meant to return of the battle was by no means seen. Low subscriber counts result in Sony Online Entertainment shutting down The Matrix Online initially of August 2009. The transfer noticed remaining gamers prompted with the message “Wake up!,” just for their avatars to instantly start screaming and convulsing, contorted into broken forms earlier than the sport’s service formally disconnected eternally.

What would’ve occurred between the varied factions because the battle turned open and Neo’s truce broke down, in addition to what actually turned of both Neo or Morpheus, was nonetheless the topic of intense hypothesis. Some gamers believed sure quests in The Matrix Online advised that Neo had re-incarnated in a brand new kind, a lady named Sarah Edmontons—an anagram of Thomas Anderson, Neo’s Matrix title—briefly talked about as having miraculously awoken from a coma earlier than disappearing. Another subplot within the wake of Morpheus’ assassination noticed EPN operatives seemingly try and reveal a closely broken fragment of Morpheus’ personal RSI, however The Matrix Online’s paring again of options meant that these threads have been in the end by no means expounded upon.

How Does The Matrix Online Tie Into Matrix: Resurrections?

Right now, it’s onerous to essentially say. We know that Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann-Moss’ returns as probably new variations of Neo and Trinity (particularly the latter’s case, contemplating we noticed Trinity die within the climax of Revolutions) already appears to counsel {that a} new cycle of battle between Machine City and humanity has begun, with a rebooted Matrix as properly. Many have additionally already speculated that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II enjoying a brand new model of Morpheus in Resurrections—unique actor Laurence Fishburne is, so far as we all know, not returning for the movie—means that the occasions established in The Matrix Online are thought of to have truly occurred, and that the model of Morpheus we knew up to now cycle actually did perish. On prime of killing Morpheus, the sport additionally established that participant characters themselves might die (in contrast to within the movies), with out their human selves within the “real world” being threatened by their avatar’s dying within the Matrix. Perhaps then, Morpheus’ “death” is probably much less of a complete factor and the model we meet in Resurrections might simply merely be the newest RSI of the actual Morpheus.

Just who this new model is, and if they are surely Morpheus as they declare to be, stays to be seen—we’ll have to attend for Resurrections to launch on December 22 to see simply how a lot of The Matrix Online’s code lives on in it.

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