Project Origin dated, becomes F.E.A.R. 2

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 September, 2008

Warner buys back the name.

Warner Bros. has bought back the F.E.A.R. name from the newly formed Activision Blizzard, allowing WB-owned Monolith to rename its upcoming Project Origin.

What's more, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, as it's now known, has been given a US release date of 10th February 2009 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Update: European gamers will be able to buy it on 13th February.

Monolith's FPS has always been a spiritual sequel to F.E.A.R. anyway, overlapping with its story and characters, so the shift to F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin isn't a great stretch.

The game follows Michael Becket, a Delta Force chappy, who is sent into the situation you spent the whole of the first game investigating about half an hour before the amazing thing that happens at the end happens.

Somehow you end up with the same slow-motion powers that you had in the first F.E.A.R., allowing you to take control of FPS firefights in unique and explosive fashion, despite the fearsome AI of your enemies.

Check out our F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin gamepage for screenshots, video and news.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dark_Era #1 3 years ago

    Amazing What a diff names can make

  • Zanuah #2 3 years ago

    Whats in a name anyway. :p

    In any case looking forward to this game, I really enjoyed the first one. (not the expansions though... I didn't want to touch them...)

  • JonFE #3 3 years ago

    To be honest, I still would prefer the Assault Recon Second Encounter moniker :)

    Joking aside, it's a good thing they got the name back, it would be silly having a F.E.A.R. 2 without Monolith being in charge.

  • johnboy_johsnon #4 3 years ago

    Wasn't there two games in development; Project Origin and Fear 2?

  • space_ace #5 3 years ago

    why not S.C.A.R.E? :p

  • Triggerhappytel #6 3 years ago

    No surprise there really - ActiBlizz seem to be axeing every Vivendi franchise which isn't a multi-million seller (I don't think the two expansions sold too well which probably quashed their interest).

    Anyway, this will make no difference - Project Origin was a licenced product of the FEAR universe anyway, wasn't it?

  • Tomo #7 3 years ago

    What johnboy said...

  • septimus #8 3 years ago

    The first few levels of FEAR were great... but I found the games entertainment value to drop off sharply after that, the anxiety and foreboding just disappeared.

    Just hope they can keep the tension going this time.

  • AtomicBanana #9 3 years ago

    F.E.A.R: First few levels were great, then complete and utter tedium till the very last level, which I personally thought was pretty cool. I'm not really interested in playing another one though frankly . . can we have another SHOGO please Monolith? (yes I know it's never going to happen :p)

  • ThePissartist #10 3 years ago

    I thought F.E.A.R was pretty poor anyway - I won't be buying this.

  • dominalien #11 3 years ago

    It's a good thing they sorted this out. It's such a waste when good franchises get put in the back of the storage room because they didn't sell a quintillion. Like EA did with everything that came out of Origin (no connection to F.E.A.R.).

    Now, here's to hoping the PS3 version is not vastly inferior this time around.

  • Gearskin #12 3 years ago

    One of my fav shooters. Own both the PC and 360 versions. Love it loads. This shall ROCK, the gameplay footage seen so far is amazing.

  • BillyBrush #13 3 years ago

    tis gonna be a good un by the looks

  • Execta #14 3 years ago

    It's time best visuals, modern day best enemy AI, slow-motion, gore and it even was a little scary too. I really loved F.E.A.R. and this is a must buy. Really looking forward to this but I wished this could be out already in 2008. But no, same time with Killzone 2. :)

  • BobsUncle #15 3 years ago

    F.E.A.R. was shit on Xbox, the aiming was totally fucked up.

  • SpyroViper #16 3 years ago

    Something tells me this won't do well on the PS3. We have Killzone 2 coming in February 2009, I wonder how many will choose that over this crap.

  • Nithron #17 3 years ago

    I actually liked the first expansion pack. Does that make me a freak?

  • Feanor #18 3 years ago

    No, Extraction Point was very good as expansion packs go. I liked it as much if not more than the main game.

  • Nithron #19 3 years ago

    Yeah, i thought so too. Seems to be a lot of hate around for both the expansions though. Not sure why.

  • YourMessageHere #20 3 years ago

    So yes, where did the thing that was going to be FEAR2 go?

    I just don't get this "FEAR was boring" talk. Do you lot just not like FPS's or something? To my eye, it had just about the best gunfights and AI in ages, now included; the minute-to-minute play is probably some of the best made in FPS to date. I had to force myself not to finish it in a single sitting. I wasn't so keen on the plot, and there were plenty of times I wanted it to shut up trying to be scary and give me more goons to puncture, but it was pretty good compared to how FPS plots usually end up. The expansions were good too - love that beam laser.