Monolith Productions, keeping it promise to make it worthwhile to play The Matrix Online, has gone and done the unthinkable.  They went and killed off Morpheus, the main sage in the Matrix and the captain of the human hovership Nebuchadnezzar. Not only is Morpheus dead in The Matrix Online, but he is also now dead in all the future works set in the Matrix Universe after the trilogy.  This is because anything that happens in Matrix Online is canon and automatically becomes part of the Matrix universe.

Morpheus’ death came at the end of this weeks Matrix Online “live events”.  The Matrix Online “live events” are storyline elements directed and hosted by Monolith Production which are designed to create in-game events for players of Matrix Online.  The players then work together to expose and act out these live in-game events with NPC characters played by Monolith staff.

This weeks “live event” story arc featured Morpheus going nuts and trying to get the Machines to hand over the body of Neo.    Morpheus did this by turning into a terrorist and placing virus-encoded bombs around The Matrix MegaCity.  Morpheus then made demands that the machines hand over the body of Neo or face the total and complete destruction of the Matrix.  The machine responded to all this by sending a mysterious assassin to blow away Morpheus.  Monolith has left it up to players to solve who the assassin is and why Morpheus went nuts.

Before all you Matrix fanatics go nuts and wreck Monolith studios over them killing Morpheus, they have hinted that things may not be as appear and Morpheus may just not be dead.  Monolith is leaving it up to players to figure out if he is or not.  No matter what the outcome, Matrix Online is shaping up this summer to have one of the coolest MMORPG storyline out there.

Even though Morpheus is now dead in the Matrix Universe, players will still be able to play him in the upcoming The Matrix: Path of Neo, due out later this year for Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.