As far as Monolith goes, it is honestly strange which games are sold and which are abandonware. NOLF games are in legal hell and AvP 2 probably too. But what about the others? Specifically Claw, Gruntz, Get Medieval, Sanity: Aiken's Artifact and Contract J.A.C.K.

Does anybody have any relevant info/reason as to why those games are still in abandonware status? Games from the same era like Blood, Shogo or Tron 2.0 are sold, but not those, for whatever reason.

Well Contract JACK being a NOLF Universe game is probably in the same legal hell that NOLF itself is in too

Claw and the others seem to be either in the hands of defunct publishers as far as I can find or Monolith just doesnt have access to those IPs
with them being a WB drone now I dont know

As far as I know, Disney bought Fox, therefore, all Fox IPs belong to Disney, and this includes the Alien, Predator, and of course AvP series. What I don't understand is why the hell AvP 1 was always for sale on GOG and other digital stores and AvP 2 wasn't? I know that AvP Classic 2000 was developed by Rebellion, but even before Disney's acquisition of Fox, AvP 1 was always available for sale, which is strange to say the least.

Maybe WB doesn't want to let Monolith re-release this stuff, I don't know, but Disney can re-release AvP 2 if they want, there are many of its games on GOG, so there is a partnership and a re-release would not be difficult, especially because Disney doesn't need the Monolith's "green light" to do this.

Ah, had no idea JACK was from the NOLF universe. Together with Aiken, it's one of the 2 games I haven't played yet. So at least that one is explained.

As for Claw, was it an original character or based on some existing IP? And even then, Tron 2.0 is here, so Disney does not seem to be the problem. Seems like the main difference for AvP 2 compared to 1 is Sierra publishing the game. Wikipedia lists some rights purchases for various titles by others when Vivendi (Sierra's parent) merged with Activision, but no mention of AvP 2 going to anyone. With Activison stating they would only publish 4 titles themselves, AvP 2 not being one of them.

I'm fairly certain it's messy publishing contracts specific to certain games where "bits" of some games are co-owned. FEAR 1-2 are also "developed by Monolith, published by Warner Bros" yet both have been here years. The difference is probably a much simpler publishing contract vs the unholy rights issue mess of the NOLF's. Contract Jack is more a spin-off than a proper NOLF game. I played it once about 10 years ago and never looked at it again (vs the 12-15 replays I've had of NOLF 1-2). Felt more like a "on rails shooter with a NOLF skin" that was missing all the humour, stealth, funny gadgets, great soundtrack and general fun of the NOLF games. You might get some enjoyment out of it (and it's easily findable on NOLF Revival with NoCD, widescreen patch pre-applied), but it's no 'NOLF 3'.

"AvP 2", "Claw", "Get Medieval", "Gruntz", "Sanity: Aiken's Artifact", "TNN Outdoors Pro Hunter 2", "NoLF 1 + 2" and "Contract J.A.C.K." are all available online.

And since you can't legally buy them anywhere,...

Sure. I already played many of them anyway, even have the CD for Gruntz. Was just wondering what's holding those less known ones like Aiken or Get Medieval in the abandonware limbo.

As I recall, it was a last ditch attempt to salvage the franchise after NOLF 2 was seen as a sales disappointment by doing a more traditional FPS, with a male protagonist to appeal to players who presumably felt gooey controlling Cate Archer. Unfortunately, leaving aside how half-baked the game feels and its poor marketing, it turned off fans of the first two games and didn't appeal to people who had passed it by. I think when Night Dive was trying to republish NOLF, they said they never even had plans to republish Contract JACK (which IMO is kind of lame since it would be good to have it just for completion's sake).

Either mixed rights, or a very specific company who owns Monolith. Hint: they removed a digitally-exclusive duology two weeks ago.

Exactly... I had forgotten about Tron 2.0, even though I have it in my library, hehe. XD So AvP 2 must be in the same copyright "hell/limbo" as NOLF. Disney should claim it anyway and relaunch it with support for the infamous Multiplayer, which was the best part in those days.

Well, not necessarily. Sierra only published the PS2 version of NOLF, so it mostly likely is not the blocker there. I fear AvP 2 is yet another can of worms.

But we know NOLFs, AvP 2 and now JACK are stuck probably due to complicated rights issues. Would love to hear some info about Gruntz, Get Medieval, Claw etc.

Gruntz is entirely Monolith (dev/publisher).
Get Medieval is apparently a combo of Monolith/Microids (both of which have presence here).
Claw is a combo of Monolith/WizardWorks. Also not sure whether the Claw character was based on something or is an original.

I've always read really good things about Claw, but I've never played it, even though I'm a fan of platforms. If I remember correctly, there is a community or something like that with some patches to install the game on modern systems and fix graphical bugs. It also appears that there are two retail versions: One with FMVs and one without.

Gruntz and Get Medieval I didn't even know existed, hehe, so I can't say much about them. According to Wikipedia, Sanity - Aiken's Artifact was published by Fox, and uses the Monolith's proprietary engine: Lithtech 2.0. So, you know, another IP that belongs to Disney, at least I think so as far as publishing goes; and from what I've seen about this title, it's a very good Diablo clone. It could be on GOG, as it's one of those games that's easy to pick up, play and put down, to come back to later for more. Unfortunately, its installer is one of those 16-bit ones, so a patch is needed to install it on any modern system.

I once read somewhere that Universal was involved somehow in some of the Monolith IP, well maybe it was hearsay, I don't know, but it seems like the NOLF script (the story itself) was created by Universal writers or something. As a popular saying in my country says: "A dog with many owners goes hungry." This is the case with all these Monolith IPs, each one made their contribution to the development... and you already know the rest.

What I'm going to say now has nothing to do with the subject... I would like to see Marvel - Ultimate Alliance 1 + 2 and X-Men Legends II - Rise of Apocalypse on GOG. I know that the first X-Men Legends will never arrive here because it is a consoles exclusive. But come on... Disney owns Marvel and Fox, so why aren't those games for sale anywhere?! I definitely don't understand these companies. A side note: X-Men Legends II - Rise of Apocalypse has never been for sale in any digital store, unlike MUA.

Probably exactly that..?

(just my guesses, as unfortunately don't have some concrete knowledge about the actual reasons)

Looks like amongst those Claw, Get Medieval and Gruntz would be "least troublesome" to release, since they were (and are?) owned in 100% by Monolith. Could there be some technical issues* or Monolith is completely not interested in that?

*I personally know how to launch all three on modern system, but not sure how does it look like on GOG side, e.g. some internal requirements for adjusting game before it can be released?

A real shame, they're extremely fun games (long before Monolith started to focus on single genre/type of games).

But maybe somewhere behind the scenes millstones are slowly grinding and GOG is still trying to re-release (maybe eventually they'll succeed).