F.E.A.R. (video game)

F.E.A.R.
File:FEAR box art.png
Developer(s)	Monolith Productions
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Universal
Engine	Lithtech: Jupiter EX
Platform(s)	PC (Windows)
Release	October 18, 2005
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Monolith Productions. It is published by Vivendi Universal and was released on October 18, 2005 for the PC.

A single player demo of the game was released on August 5, 2005, and a multiplayer demo on September 29, 2005. A special DVD Director's Edition was also published, including 'making of' documentaries and a promotional comic book.

The game is notable for its innovative features: bullet time (called SlowMo, similar to Max Payne but in first-person), martial arts moves, and advanced artificial intelligence.

Story

Template:Spoiler "The story begins as an unidentified paramilitary force infiltrates a multi-billion dollar aerospace compound. The government responds by sending in Special Forces, but loses contact as an eerie signal interrupts radio communications. When the interference subsides moments later, the team has been literally torn apart. As part of a classified strike team created to deal with threats no one else can handle, your mission is simple: Eliminate the intruders at any cost. Determine the origin of the signal. And contain this crisis before it spirals out of control." - Press Release

The game's horror element also includes allusions to Japanese-style horror movies such as The Ring and 'The Shalebridge Cradle' level of the game Thief: Deadly Shadows, in that FEAR uses the idea of a terrifying little girl, instead of the more obvious first person perspective scare tactics used in horror-survival games such as Doom. Admittedly, this concept is relatively common in film.

The Team

The FEAR team was formed during 2002 as a covert branch of the United States Army to defend various national security interests against threats of a paranormal or supernatural nature. However, teammates rant that no one takes them seriously, given the unbelievable nature of what they fight against.

Regardless, FEAR has the prerogative to use deadly force and heavy weapons against perceived threats, including assault rifles, combat shotguns, and even rocket-propelled weaponry, as well as experimental energy weapon systems.

Characters

Allies

This section covers the FEAR team as well as a single Delta Force member.

"The New Guy" (you)

Little is known about the player character, who is referred to as "The New Guy" by some of the F.E.A.R. team members, aside from his gender, and the fact that he has been on the team for only a week. He wears a mask, as seen in his reflections and game promotional artwork. His reflexes are well beyond the human norm, allowing him to perform maneuvers with surgical accuracy in an extremely short span of time, an ability portrayed in the game as the world "slowing down" around him. It is not known if he is a normal person with exceptional skills, or if he has been enhanced in some unnatural manner. Speculation as to his origins are fuelled by a flashback at the beginning of the single player demo where the player appears to be laying down, staring up at a man who looks like a doctor saying, "You will be a God among men".

At the end it is revealed that the protagonist was indeed the first child of Alma and thus Origin's "first prototype", explaining the mysterious sights he keeps seeing as psychic phenomena. Alma knows the identity of her first son, but this apparently has not stopped her from attempting to kill him, be it actively or passively.

It is widely speculated that the entire mission to capture and eliminate Fettel was in fact an elaborately devised field test for the main character, designed to evaluate his strengths and weaknesses and assess his ability to operate in a hostile environment. This is strongly implied by Genevieve's final communique with the mysterious "Senator", in which she proudly announces the success of the "first prototype", suggesting the player character may in fact have been a puppet of Genevieve's machinations all along.

Rowdy Betters

Commissioner Betters is the FEAR team coordinator, and is in charge of briefing and monitoring the status of F.E.A.R. field operatives via the Hannibal-3 spy satellite during missions. He relays information as necessary to and from fellow teammates, and stays out of direct action, instead operating from mobile command facilities through wireless communications equipment.

Leo Jankowski

Jankowski is a veteran of the FEAR team, is bald, and has a foul mouth. He lacks faith in the protagonist's capabilities, especially since the protagonist was transferred to FEAR only a week ago. He believes the protagonist's lack of experience makes him unsuitable for the solo mission in the single player demo. In the final retail version of the game, the sequence of mistrust continues, with an overheard conversation between Jankowski and Jin, where Jankowski admits to feeling uneasy around the protagonist , claiming to feel as though he is being looked right through. This is one of the earliest indications that the protagonist may be special or unique in some way. By the end of the game, it is very clear that Jankowski's intution was quite correct. Later in the game Jankowski disappears, but the rest of the team he was with is all accounted for (as a bloody pile of three skeletons).

Although it is never explicitly shown, Jankowski is assumed to have been killed while investigating the South River Wastewater Treatment Plant for signs of Paxton Fettel, as evidenced by brief, hallucinatory appearances in the form of a ghostly apparition. Life signs of his that are detected at the Armacham building are assumed to be merely lingering traces of his ghost which continues to haunt the main protagonist, or perhaps Alma or Fettel use the 'apparition' of Jankowski to frighten the protagonist character by suggesting that if Jankowski can be killed, so can he. In Jankowski's death, it's clear that his eyes were plucked out. Earlier in the game he calls for you saying "Where are you?" If the player uses slow-motion, go right up to him, the player will see clearly that Jankoski is missing his eyes. He has become a blind ghost.

Jin Sun-Kwon

File:Jin-Sun-Kwon.jpg

Jin Sun-Kwon

Jin is a level-headed woman of small build that serves as the team's combat medic and is in charge of in-field forensics. Her parents were from Seoul, but she was born and raised in the USA. Jin is also the only character who appears to be fond of the protagonist, describing him as "cute" when asked of him.

She was originally designated as a sniper in the very early builds of the game, but this role was removed when developer Monolith found itself unable to integrate scenarios into the game in which she could snipe.

Douglas Holiday

A member of Delta Force, Holiday is a demolition expert. He makes occasional appearances during the game, at one point defusing a hostage wired with plastic explosives.

In the developers' initial vision for the game, Holiday was to be a member of the F.E.A.R. team who would handle explosives and other demolitions tasks. A lack of opportunities to feature him throughout the game eventually compelled lead designer Craig Hubbard to relegate him to the role of Delta unit leader.

Enemies and Minor Characters

This section covers the notable employees of Armacham Technology Corporation as well as Paxton Fettel and Alma. It should be noted that not all persons listed here are necessarily trying to actively work against FEAR, they are merely in this category for the sake of completeness.

Paxton Fettel

File:Paxton Fettel FEAR.png

Paxton Fettel

A product of Armacham Technology Corporation's secretive Origin project, Paxton Fettel commands an entire battalion of highly-trained, heavily-armed clone super-soldiers that take orders directly from Paxton telepathically, a system developed by Armacham in a US Department of Defence-sponsored project known as 'Perseus'. However, the soldiers still rely on using military jargon over radio chatter to communicate amongst themselves, ("Echo 12, we have reports of a possible intruder in your vicinity." "We haven't seen anything." "Roger, keep your eyes open.") and are able to act fairly independently within the confines of Fettel's mind control.

While he is a cannibal and is seen throughout the game devouring the remains of his victims, he indulges in the primal act not to sustain himself nutritionally, but to apparently absorb people's memories by consuming their flesh, as touched on in the Dark Horse Comics publication that accompanied the DVD edition. He is first seen kneeling in a cell at Armacham Technology Corporation, before being released by the mysterious Alma. In the comic again, and confirmed early in the game, it is learned that Alma fused minds with Fettel, showing him the "pains" that ATC caused her and who was directly responsible for them. He keeps muttering that "they" deserve to die, "they" later being revealed to be everyone related to the Origin project. He often appears to the player for brief moments of time before dissolving into ash; these are hallucinations directly caused by Fettel's psychic abilities.

It is revealed near the end that Alma was his mother, and that leading his battalion of cloned super soldiers into rebellion during the game was an effort to locate the facility where Alma's body was being stored, and free her. He is killed by the protagonist near the end of the game in the secret underground facility.

Harlan Wade

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Harlan Wade

Harlan Wade is an elderly scientist who has worked at Armacham for decades, where his daughter, Alice Wade, also works. He pioneered the Origin project, and ironically was also the one that initiated the shut down of that very same project. He is the man seen at the very beginning saying "You will be a god among men", referring to the protagonist, the first 'prototype' produced by Origin. He is infuriated when Armacham decides to try and reopen the original location of the Origin facility after decades of lockdown, and in the end when he hears of their plan to destroy the Origin facility outright, decides to release Alma, stating that "She has suffered enough, don't you think?".

Alma shares his surname, and although it is not stated in the game what their relationship is, he is most likely her father. He is something of an enigmatic character, and it is not clear how much guilt, if any, he feels for the horrible things Alma endured as part of Origin.

He is killed immediately by Alma upon opening the Vault in which she was kept, reduced to a pile of bloody bones. He seemed to have no intention to avoid this however, stating earlier in a recorded video that "It is in the nature of Man to make monsters, and it is in the nature of monsters to destroy their makers".

Alice Wade

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Alice Wade

Alice Wade is the daughter of Harlan Wade, and is an employee of Armacham Technology Corporation. As of the game, she was part of a task force working on analyzing contamination down at a water purification plant, which Armacham had interest in because of its location downriver from the Origin facility, and feared it would be traced back to them. She has a mild fear of flying, and is later taken prisoner and killed by Paxton Fettel. Her corpse is partially cannibalized when the protagonist reaches her.

She spends her initial appearance as an anxious person, and subsequently panics and runs off from protective custody after the UH-60 Black Hawk transport arriving to rescue her was shot down by a Mil Mi-24 Hind under the control of Paxton's clone soldiers.

Genevieve Aristide

An unseen character, Genevieve Aristide is the president of Armacham, and is the female voice heard speaking to an unknown senator during the game's introductory sequence. She tried to have the secret facility where Alma was held reopened despite Harlan's resistance and warnings, but only regretted it later when the first few teams sent down did not return. It is speculated that she decided to use this opportunity to test out the other prototype, the protagonist, as at the end of the game after the credits, she proclaims the prototype a success.

Aldus Bishop

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Aldus Bishop

Aldus Bishop is an employee of Armacham and, along with Alice Wade, has been assigned to a special taskforce dispatched to investigate reported disturbances in the Auburn district in the past 10 years.

In the game, Bishop is taken hostage by Fettel's forces, awaiting interrogation by Fettel regarding the location of senior Origin researcher, Harlan Wade. When the protagonist reaches him, he is found to have been brutally beaten by his captors as well as booby-trapped with C4 explosives, which are promptly defused by Delta force member, Douglas Holiday.

Had Bishop not been rescued by the protagonist, he would most likely have faced the same fate as Fettel's other cannibalized victims, Charles Habegger and Bill Moody. This is a moot point, however, as he is killed anyway by the very organization that hired him, Armacham Technology Corporation, just as he is being evacuated by helicopter. His execution serves as a chilling reminder of the extent to which Genevieve Aristide is willing to go cover up the events surrounding the Origin experiments, even if it means killing her own employees.

Norton Mapes

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Norton Mapes

Norton Mapes is a grossly overweight engineer employed by Armacham, and is one of the only survivors following the attack by Fettel's clone soldiers. When the protagonist first encounters him, he requests assistance in disabling the facility's security system in exchange for his help in resetting the network server hub. Shortly after disabling it, however, Mapes reneges on his promise and actively tries to sabotage and impede the protagonist's progress, mainly by unleashing ATC custom-designed gun turrets on the player, which have been scattered throughout the building.

For unknown reasons, he is extremely loyal to Genevieve Aristide. Near the end of the game, at Genevieve's behest, he is seen attempting to destroy all classified information regarding ATC's activities and the Perseus and Origin projects in the Origin facility. He even tries to wipe out the facility entirely, but is stopped short by Harlan Wade, who ostensibly mortally wounds him just as he is about to enter the vault.

Mapes has a taste for the fictional snack Cheezee Pooz and proudly wears a "RTFM" beltbuckle.

In the game, he is being threatened with legal action by Alice Wade for "sexual harassment".

Alma

File:Alma FEAR.png

Alma in the shadows

The identity and mystery of Alma is the very core of F.E.A.R.. First appearing in the introduction, Alma's presence is felt constantly throughout the game, even though almost nothing is known about her until the very end. She appears a little girl of about eight years of age wearing a red dress. She has a disturbingly blank and mask-like face almost completely obscured by long black hair. Right from her first appearance, it is never quite clear if she is real, or only exists in the minds of the people seeing her.

In the introduction, it is made clear that she has a strong relationship of some kind with Paxton Fettel, whispering to him and seeming to approach the door of his cell, which opens upon her arrival, revealing an empty corridor. Fettel screams, and activates the troops under his command, beginning his murderous rampage.

Alma is seen repeatedly by the player, often only out of the corner of his eye, appearing standing in the shadows or darting quickly out of sight. As her appearances are almost always accompanied by scenes of extreme violence, this rapidly becomes very unnerving. Sometimes all that is heard is her soft, giggling laugh, or indistinct words whispered as though in the player's ear.

The full extent of Alma's powers is unclear, as much of what is seen of her is just hallucination, but she is able to kill people by apparently boiling or liquifying their flesh, leaving them as just charred skeletons lying in pools of blood. At the end of the game when she is released from the Origin vault, she seems to cause dark spectres to appear and attack the player, but these may also be hallucinations. However considering her unimaginable psychic power, it is also possible that without the shielded cell in which she was kept, the drug-induced coma, and, what appeared to be cryogenic freezing inside the cell, Alma's nightmares were able to manifest themselves into physical being.

Alma's surname is Wade, and she seems to have been the daughter of Harlan Wade, a scientist working for Armacham Technology Corporation. Her mother is never mentioned in the game. Alma was born a very powerful psychic, apparently very attuned to negative emotions, something which caused her to become quite disturbed.

Harlan Wade created the Origin project, the goals of which were to genetically engineer a highly powerful psychic, possibly for military purposes. It was decided early on in the project that if the genetically-designed 'prototype' gestated in the womb of a psychic mother, the results would be more favorable. Alma was eight years old when chosen to be the mother, and fifteen years old when the first prototype was born. She was placed in an induced coma while pregnant. The first prototype born was the player's character, a fact hinted at throughout the game but only revealed at the very end. The second prototype born was Paxton Fettel.

When Fettel was ten years old, he underwent what is referred to by Armacham scientists as a 'synchronicity event'. The exact details are unclear, but apparently Alma--despite her comatose state--was able to make psychic contact with him and either inadvertently or purposely turn him psychotic, where he subsequently killed several people. Following this incident, the Origin project was shut down and "the vault" (the shielded cell where Alma was kept) sealed against any entry. Evidently this is when the life support in her cell was also deactivated, and Alma's body died six days later.

Just prior to the start of the game, Genevieve Aristide orders a re-opening of the vault as the first step in the resurrection of Origin. This, apparently, lets Alma's spirit loose. She makes contact with Fettel (now a psychic commander of a battalion of cloned soldiers as part of the Perseus project), and another synchronicity event occurs. Fettel immediately begins his rampage, with the specific goal of hunting down everyone involved in the Origin experiments, claiming, "They deserve to die. They all deserve to die."

At the end of the game, Harlan Wade re-opens the vault, setting Alma free. Her ghost is a naked, 15-year old emaciated woman whose first act is to kill Harlan. After this, through the actions of the player, the Origin facility is destroyed in a massive explosion. Onboard the Black Hawk helicopter that rescues the protagonist and is circling the devastation, the copter jerks noticeably. Almost immediately, at the very last moment right before the credits roll, a bloody, naked Alma appears over the side, preparing to pull herself up into the cabin. It seems that something is still unfinished in her restless soul.

Organizations and terms

This section covers the other organizations at work within the game, as well as a summary of the terms presented within the game.

Delta Force

The Special Force Operational Detachment - Delta (or SFOD-D) is present along with F.E.A.R. during the duration of the game, though they are relegated to primarily off-screen roles. The Black Hawk transports present within the game belong to them.

Although they are ostensibly there to assist you in your mission, this proves ultimately irrelevant as through some circumstance or another they are separated from your character, often by having them die, through some contrived means, at or soon after the commencement of a level.

Armacham Technology Corporation

ATC for short. A fictional corporation, ATC has been in operation for some time, given the fact that the two individuals produced by the Origin project (the player character and Paxton Fettel), are at least in their mid-twenties at the time of the game. A globe-spanning conglomerate, ATC prides itself on being on the cutting edge of technology, with R&D occurring primarily for military applications, including aerospace. They have highly-efficient nuclear reactors, working cryonic suspension technology, cloning technology and can be extremely unethical with regards to their methods.

Throughout the game, the protagonist encounters several of ATC's high-tech designs. Automated gun turrets, troops in powered armor exoskeletons and some sort of compact unmanned aerial vehicle that seems to use thrust vectoring at three nozzles situated around the craft to maneuver, and is armed with what seems to be a laser cannon that fires in pulses. The craft is small enough to move around within buildings and is employed in groups by ATC as a security force.

ATC uses a TPS Letterhead similar to that of Initech from the movie Office Space. Their logo is also very familiar.

Project Origin

It is never made quite clear what the ultimate goal of the Origin project (and further questions are raised by the very end of the game), but it was created as a means of genetically engineering extremely powerful psychics, very possibly for military purposes, as some kind of super-soldier. (Following the fallout from Origin, one of the prototypes produced by it, Paxton Fettel, was used in a project called Perseus, which involved a single psychic commander issuing orders to cloned soldiers via telepathy.)

The project was carried out in secret in an underground military facility which ATC purchased from the government in the 1950's. This would ensure that the project could be kept going without fear of interference. The original plan for the project was to find a psychic and clone them, perhaps modifying their mind to produce greater powers. The psychic chosen was Alma Wade, apparently the daughter of project founder Harlan Wade.

Alma was apparantly an extremely powerful psychic, even at a very young age. She apparantly suffered from severe nightmares, and it was deduced that she was highly receptive to negative emotions. She was forcibly inducted into Origin the age of eight, and according to the Dark Horse Comics supplement that comes with the Director's Edition DVD, was subjected to unethical, painful and plainly cruel treatment and experimentation. Also featured on the DVD is a live-action video featuring an interview between Alma and a doctor, which shows that even then, although she was functionally mute and virtually unresponsive, she was extremely adept at manipulating people psychically, seemingly with the goal of making them afraid.

The original plan was to simply create the first prototypes of the project from her DNA, but Harlan Wade was not convinced that psychic abilities were entirely genetic, and thus the project was changed: Alma would be impregnated with the genetically-engineered (from Alma's own DNA) prototypes. She was to be kept in an induced coma for the rest of the project, and would supposedly give birth to the prototypes during artificially-stimulated labour.

Origin produced two male prototypes. Alma was fifteen when her first son, the protagonist, was born. She was in a drug induced coma during labor but awoke and is seen yelling "No!" as her first son is taken away. This prototype was initially deemed a 'failure', and some unspecified time later, she was impregnated with a second son, Paxton Fettel. When Fettel was ten, she linked her mind with his, triggering what Origin researchers dubbed a "Synchronicity Event". During this, Fettel "went crazy", and killed several people. Following this incident, Origin was shut down and the facility sealed. According to Harlan Wade, she died six days after they 'pulled the plug'.

Alma's mind, however, still refused to die. The Auburn industrial district directly above the facility, became an abandoned, desolate urban wasteland, as anyone living there fell sick or suffered acute psychological problems. This was thought for a time to be thanks to chemical or radiological pollution, but was in fact some form of 'psychic fallout', negative energy absorbed by Alma and returned a hundred-fold.

Just prior to the start of the game, Genevieve Aristide, president of ATC, tried to reactivate the facility as the first step of ressurecting Origin, sending teams down there to assess suitability. It would seem that the re-opening of "the vault" allowed something of Alma's spirit to escape, resulting in the deaths of the teams Aristide sent down, and with Alma once again making contact with Fettel, triggering another Synchronicity Event.

The Origin facility (along with the entire Auburn district) was destroyed at the end of the game in a massive explosion, thanks to the efforts of the player.

Trivia

• At some unknown point during game development, John Mulkey the lead level designer swore he saw a shadow in the restroom mirror at the office and told a colleague. The colleague went into the same restroom and would only agree that the atmosphere was "creepy". The restroom in question had one non-working light and one that was flickering. John Mulkey insists that he saw it though no one seems to believe him. They don't go to that restroom much anymore.

• Norton Mapes, an engineer working with ATC within the game, has a belt-buckle that reads RTFM, which is a popular acronym for "read the fucking manual". It is also exceedingly easy to tell when he's nearby as he leaves junk food wrappers lying about.

• The original E3 video in which Alma slaughters a team of three in a corridor made it into the final build of the game, but in severely-altered capacity. Early on in the game, the action shifts to a water purification plant, with the players' character having to leave his team-mates temporarily to work the gate controls. When he comes back, they are all dead and the psychic flashback which plays bears great similarity to the E3 video.

• The level included in the single-player demo was comprised of elements from several maps stitched together. It is not an actual level from the final build.

• The music that is heard in the cinematic introductory sequence was originally slated to be played at the ending of the game. The team found that it fit the sequence's pacing and moved it to the beginning. It is interesting to note that the music chosen for the sequence was not supposed to remain; it was simply a placeholder until a more appropriate musical piece was constructed. However, the development team liked the placeholder music so much that it remained through the development phase to the final version.

• A significant number of the preview videos contain footage that did not make it into the final game. As such they shed some insight into how dramatically the development process can alter a product before release.

• A car chase sequence was originally planned for and even had extensive drafting during the development of the game, but was eventually removed as, in the words of Craig Hubbard, "It didn't work out the way we hoped it would". The car itself, however, made it into the game in a limited capacity; it is the same one that the protagonist starts the first level in.

• Leo Jankowski is also the name of a character in the game Deus Ex: Invisible War.

• In some levels, there are signs that say 'Heater And Refrigerator Maintenance'. This is a reference to the organization H.A.R.M. in the game No One Lives Forever, also developed by Monolith. The signs have the stylized "H" logo from H.A.R.M. in the background.

• If players wait until the credits at the end of the game come to an end, they will hear an interesting phone call from Genevieve Aristide to the senator. Here she states that the first prototype, ostensibly the protagonist, was a complete success.

• As promotional material, and for the sake of elucidating some of the game's backstory, publisher Vivendi Universal filmed a series of minute long, live action vignettes which served as a prequel to the events in the game. The series centers on a particular interview with Alma conducted by an Armacham scientist, Dr. Green, who initially tries to develop a rapport with her interviewee but gives up when Alma is clearly unreceptive to her questions. She is slowly driven insane by Alma's psychic powers and at the end of the series she is seen cowering in fear and muttering incoherently.

• At one point in the game inside the Aramacham HQ, there is a cubicle with a red stapler and a sheet that says "TPS REPORT" on the desk. This is most likely a nod to the film Office Space. Armacham-headed TPS reports are also seen on many of the bulletin boards throughout the game.

• Many model "8311 XHT" fume hoods are seen throughout the labs in the Armacham HQ and Origin Facility. This is most likely a tip of the hat to the notable science fiction film THX 1138.

• An envelope that can be found in some of the office cubicles has the recipient as, "Monolith Productions" followed by a full address.

• Fettel's jacket was originally slated to be present on a secondary bad guy, but was later integrated onto Fettel after the traits of the two were merged solely into Fettel as the team found that a single villain worked better into the overall plot of the game.

• In a later level of the game, there is an office where a radio plays the theme song from Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, one of Monolith's first games.

• One of the cheats is "kfa", which may come from Doom's idkfa cheat. This could be a small injoke about Doom.

• As very prominent product placement, all the laptops in the game bear the Alienware logo and name. Additional non-ingame advertising includes the SoBe No Fear energy drink on the back of the comic, the Masters of Horror TV series in both the manual and comic, and solely in the manual: a FEAR-specific Alienware rebate ad, an ad for the Sound Blaster X-Fi technology, and a final ad for the D-Link DGL-4300 router.

• In one of the missions players receive a radio transmission from A. Shepherd, SFOD Coordinator. This might be a reference to Half-Life: Opposing Force, where the main character is called Adrian Shephard.

See also

• First-person shooters
• PANICS, the F.E.A.R. promotional machinima project by Rooster Teeth Productions.

External links

• F.E.A.R. Official Website
• F.E.A.R. Wiki
• F.E.A.R. Tweak Guide
• F.E.A.R. Fans (Fansite)
• FEAR game (Fansite)
• List of mirrors for single-player demo
• F.E.A.R Portal
• IGN: F.E.A.R.
• UGO's Future of Gaming - F.E.A.R.