And the world? “It’s a more open environment; a destroyed city opens up an incredible amount of opportunities. You can have what seems like a very normal environment, then turn it about on its head. You can do some really great things to play with a player’s expectation.” As far as dead-certainties though: killer robot-mechs will be tasked with hunting you down in the Auburn streets, high-kicking foes known as Replica Assassins with wrist-mounted blades will cause hand-to-hand mischief (who could well be tooled up variants on our hospital poo-smearing friend), Alma will be blowing stuff up with her mind, and you can expect a few ominous playgrounds as well. And a downed plane or two.

And the combat sounds as much fun as it ever was. The chaos of your gunfights will be exacerbated by five times as much detail to each room, and therefore more breakables, more debris, more smoke and more slow-motion swearing. More than ever before the aim is for bullet exchanges to be sandbox, with ramifications of your split-second battle tactics reflected in your enemies’ movement, actions, and eventual demise. Plus, you’ll be able to interact with the environment in much the same way as clone soldiers could in the previous game - leaping over fences, or toppling over furniture, then flipping it over and taking cover behind it. “What we’ve done is built lots and lots of systems into the game - and not so much hardcore scripting, that would mean every time you go into that room the exact same things are going to happen in that exact same order,” explains Mulkey. “We put a lot more opportunities into the environment that, given the right conditions and the right player choices, certain things play out.”

This random factor, the way clever level design goes hand in hand with AI cleverness, is what has been so lacking on the externally-produced FEAR expansion bandwagon. What’s more, it’s a paramount shame that such a worthy development team and game have been forced so far back in the starting grid by powers beyond their control. The FEAR universe was, and is, a unique step forward for first-person gaming, and the prospect of getting it back new, improved and with a bit less corridor is exciting to say the least.