Monolith's Dave Matthews, primary art lead on F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, has told CVG that F.E.A.R. expansions and console ports have likely cost the series some fans.
TimeGate Studios' F.E.A.R. expansions Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate received lukewarm critical receptions, while Day 1 Studios' PS3 and 360 ports of F.E.A.R. didn't quite match up to Monolith's original PC version.
In a recent interview we put it to Matthews that the non-Monolith developed F.E.A.R. products likely introduced a number of new people to the brand.
"And killed off a few," was his response, suggesting Monolith has a bit of work to do in attracting some punters back to the series.
"[TimeGate] took the story in a direction that we didn't intend," he added. "We look at Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate as an alternate universe, a 'what could have been', and because of that it doesn't necessarily diminish the story that we were trying to tell. F.E.A.R. was about Alma, F.E.A.R. 2 is about Alma, and we wanted to continue the story the way we originally intended."
Matthews also promised that the 360 and PS3 versions of Project Origin will be much closer to their PC counterpart than was the case with the original F.E.A.R..
"Now we're handling all three versions, we've changed our development structure to develop all three SKUs simultaneously and there's no lead platform," he said. "While there will be some slight variations between the different versions, so if you're on PC you can push some things further, our main goal is to make sure the experience is synonymous across all three platforms."
Publisher Warner Bros. yesterday released 35 new screens from the game, which is due for release on February 13, 2009.
Keep an eye out for more from our interview with Matthews over the coming weeks. While you wait for that though, have a read of PC Gamer's latest preview here.
Extraction Point was great. Those invisible red-eye demon things were genuinely spooky, and the way your first battle with them kept getting delayed built up some nice tension.
If anything is worrying me about FEAR 2, its all the videos showing the player controlling the big robot suit. Don't get me wrong, I love the Mechwarrior series, its just whenever I've seen this done in an FPS (eg Quake4), it was the low point of the game.
Well it's true, I don't bother playing FEAR games now. I had the first one on PC and loved it - played it on the 360 and hated it! It's put me off the franchise now.
I had the PC version, but couldn't get in to it (perhaps because I'd just finished HL2). But then I bought the 360 version, plus the expansion disc, a couple of months ago and absolutely loved it!
I didn't like the level/art design in FEAR but the core experience of actually shooting stuff was spot on.
Monolith are a pretty awesome developer to be fair. I strongly recommend that you check out Tron 2.0 if you've never played it. It's a few years old now, but should still look decent due to Tron's art style. Awesome & woefully underappreciated game.
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