What Lurks in Hubbard's Cupboard: An Inside Look at F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

12/10/2008 1:37 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 4

When F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon first appeared on store shelves, it was quite a departure for Monolith Productions, the company that had recently cut a niche for itself with its seemingly Austin Powers-inspired No One Lives Forever games.

The Operative: No One Lives Forever was pure camp, a stylish spoof on spies. In the gory world of first-person shooters, No One Lives Forever stood out as a game with a sense of humor.

But along with a few good punch lines, another niche was seething in the halls of Monolith Productions, in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Some of the people at the company had a taste for horror.

"There are a lot of different categories of horror," says Craig Hubbard, principal designer at Monolith. "There are games that specialize in monsters and demons. Our games are not so much like monster horror. Our games have a get-under-your-skin kind of horror."

At the time of this interview -- late October -- Hubbard and many other Monolith employees were playing Dead Space, a blockbuster survival horror game set in outer space from Electronic Arts. According to Hubbard, Dead Space is great, but it's also different.

"Dead Space is really fun," says Hubbard. "It's scary, but it doesn't really make your skin crawl. I love what they did, but we are doing a different experience.

"There are not a lot of companies ... in fact, I have never played a first-person shooter with a supernatural feel. A lot of the horror tends to be monster horror, which is cool and scary in a different way."

That difference in style and focus is important because in March, Warner Bros. Games will release F.E.A.R. 2, Monolith's latest creepy, psychic-supernatural first-person shooter.

Alma matters

Hubbard is careful to point out that he is the "co-principal designer" of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin; he took the project over when the original principal left the company.

Starting halfway through the project might have been more daunting for other designers; but as the principal designer of the original F.E.A.R., Hubbard knows the property inside-out.

In both F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R. 2, players step into familiar shoes in unfamiliar territory. You see the game through the eyes and scope of a special forces operative -- a trigger-happy guy with big guns and loads of ammunition.

This should sound familiar to anyone who has played Rainbow Six, Counter-Strike and dozens of other games. In this case, however, the ultimate target is not somebody your average agent ever hopes to meet.