F.E.A.R. - On this day

On this day sixteen years ago, a first-person shooter called F.E.A.R. It was delivered to us by the Monolith Productions team, first as an exclusive for PC, and a year later for Xbox 360, and another year later for PlayStation 3 console.

F.E.A.R. became instantly one of the best single-player FPS games of the time with a brutal shooting model, as well as the acclaimed artificial intelligence of opponents who still behave better today than those in modern games.

In the game, as a member of the First Encounter Assault Recon special unit, we chased a manic killer and escaped from a paranormal ghost in the form of a girl named Alma. The story continued through two expansions: Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate, but also through two sequels from 2009 and 2011.

F.E.A.R. was a skillful blend of several opposing inspirations. On the one hand, he wanted to give the player a sense of power and control as if he were in an American action movie. Therefore, it was crucial that the player felt like a Point Man character, ie that he could see his body when he looked down, which was not yet common in FPS games in 2005.

On the other hand, the game used the familiar motif of Japanese horror movies in the form of a little girl who reminded many of Samara from The Ring. Just like in Japanese horror movies, a significant focus was placed on the sound, not only to achieve the atmosphere but also within the gameplay. Eg. some enemies in the game were invisible so their arrival in the game could only be predicted by sound, i.e. listening.

F.E.A.R. is available today on Steam and GOG, and can also be played in PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions.