"We’ve done some changes engine-wise. FEAR was back when per-pixel lighting was like ‘Holy cow, we’ve got to have that’. It made for an atmospheric game, but it was also very stark and shadowy. We loved it, but at the same time we hated it. There were times where you were fighting guys by shooting at their muzzle flash. This time we wanted to do something with more realistic lighting and softer shadows. That’s not to say we’re going to give you a bright game – it’s just another tool. We’re still going to throw you in the dark. There are still going to be the little-girl screams.” And when he says “little girl screams”, he means you, not Alma.

Rumours that the game might be more open-ended have been overstated – it’s still all about getting from A to B – the real sandbox element comes from the unscripted AI. “We really use the notion of the environment being able to play out in many different ways. You’re not going to see maybe a 10th of what it can do, because the AI is reacting to your actions. You’ll find you anthropomorphise the enemies, saying – ‘You bastards, I knew you were going to do that!’” This is true of the regular levels, although we have to say that the mech levels – by their overpowered nature – feel like a push-over slog down a corridor. These are the levels that need to prove their place in the FEAR universe. Fun as they are, and fan-prompted as they may be, they feel anomalous in a world where you’re supposed to be worried about your sanity, rather than your miniguns overheating.

So it was reassuring to see the hospital area, populated with the already well-publicised Abominations. Half BioShock spider splicer and half Silent Hill 2 mannequin, they move with much more fluidity and nauseating grace than their counterparts in Rapture, sliding up walls and launching themselves through doorways, before landing neatly on your face for a quick munch. Are there any more new enemies? The question is evaded by our hosts: there either aren’t, or they’re being kept for a press event closer to launch.

As our day in Monolith HQ came to a close, we were convinced that Project Origin has taken a few chips out of the J-Horror camp and put them into the safer bet of the action movie. After all, the Western romance with movies such as The Ring and The Grudge has evaporated. John Mulkey provides the reassurance we needed: “There is this moment that is going to creep you out, it’s really nasty. Craig Hubbard, the lead game designer on the original game, has been doing a lot of story stuff for us, and he came up with this idea that was so creepy that he had to go to the president of Warner Bros. and see if it would be OK to put it into the game.” He can’t talk about it, which sucks, Mulkey admits. But having to ask the head of a corporation if something is too nasty to put in the game? Now that’s promising.

Jun 27, 2008