F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

1001 Video Games

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

April fools'

In 2009, as an April Fools' joke, the official site of the game announced that the next game in the series will be a prequel to the original F.E.A.R.. As a reference to the criticism surrounding the quick time events in F.E.A.R. 2, the news stated that the new game would consist entirely of quick time events, as well as allow the player to control Alma on her swing, try not to fall asleep in Wade Elementary School, and enjoy the "Alma Ball".

F.E.A.R. expansions

While the sequel to F.E.A.R. is said to ignore the events of both expansions of the original game, F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point and F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate, there are a lot of things which have been taken from the expansions directly or indirectly.

Starting with the weapons: the Laser Beam gun in this game uses basically the same effect as the Type 12 Laser Carbine in Extraction Point, while the new Assault Rifle is very similar in design to the VES Advanced Rifle introduced in Perseus Mandate.

A few similarities for the enemies:

The first type of the ATC soldiers in the game look almost exactly the same as the new type of ATC soldiers from Perseus Mandate.

The new Abomination enemy in the game is somewhat similar to the Shades introduced in Extraction Point - they behave as neutral monsters, who use only a melee attack and kill any human being on their way, just like the Shades.

And finally, the funniest thing about "ignoring the events of the expansions", is the design of many levels in the game:

In the beginning levels, the new Delta Team finds itself in a hospital, later revealed to be part of a secret underground facility. In Extraction Point, the last levels take place in a hospital as well.

In some later stages, the protagonist finds himself in the subway. This place was seen in both of the expansions, mainly in Extraction Point. There is even one place in the subway level in the sequel, where the protagonist needs to step aside from a moving train to avoid getting killed by it. The same thing was in Extraction Point.

And finally, in one of the levels, a falling airplane can be seen, just like in the beginning of Extraction Point. However, in the expansion, the crash site was near a subway entrance and the plane was a U.S. Military one. In Project Origin, the crash site is somewhere in the city and it is an ordinary tour plane.

German version

Various blood and gore effects were removed in the German version. Also missing is the ragdoll system for corpses.

Power Armor

The Elite Powered Armor was originally going to be bright red coloured, but in the final game it has been changed to an olive drab military tone. It seems that Armacham supports the metric system judging by the fact that the Elite Powered Armor's heat gauges are marked as being in degrees Celsius. The Elite Powered Armor looks very similar to the Dreadnought vehicles from Warhammer 40,000.

References

In the first mission, Sanctuary, there is a strange statue in the foyer of Genevieve’s apartment. The same statues can be seen in the Museum in Monolith's other horror/FPS Condemned 2: Bloodshot.

Title

When the development studio Monolith Productions, Inc. was acquired by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc. in January 2004, the name of the F.E.A.R. franchise remained with Sierra/Vivendi Games, so a new name had to be found.

In June 2007 fans were asked to submit their proposals in the contest "Name Your Fear", where three favourites were chosen: Dead Echo, Project Origin and Dark Signal. The voting for the names closed in August and in September Project Origin was announced as the winner:

Project Origin is a strong fan and developer favorite. We received over 400 submissions containing Origin in the name. The second submission of the contest was Project Origin, so we have had the name rattling around in our heads right from the beginning Project Origin is a natural fit for the title of the sequel because it is the Armacham program from which all of the trouble in the game world originates. The architect of Project Origin, Harlan Wade, used his daughter in a horrific experiment which turned her into the monster that we see in the first game. ... In the sequel, the repercussions of Project Origin are only beginning to unravel.

However, the name had in the meantime ended up at Activision Blizzard and in September 2008 Monolith announced to have purchased the name. Project Origin was kept, but as a subtitle.

Uranium

Judging by the game's PDA, the Armacham Hammerhead weapon shoots uranium spikes. The fired flechettes have glowing bands on them, however, depleted uranium does not glow (very few radioactive compounds do) and in fact does look very similar to steel.

Weapons

Like in the original F.E.A.R., some weapons in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin have a real-life counterpart. The Andra FD-99 submachine gun is based on the FN P90, the Pattern PK470 assault rifle on the HK G36, the SHO Series-3 pump-action shotgun on the Mossberg 500 and the Vollmar ULTRA92 semi-automatic shotgun on the Pancor Jackhammer.

Awards

• Gamespot
  • 2009 - Most Disappointing Game (Editors' Choice)

Information also contributed by Big John WV, MasterMegid and Medicine Man