F.E.A.R.

Lore & Background

The original F.E.A.R. game is set in the city of Fairport in 2025. The player takes the role of Point Man, the newest recruit of the F.E.A.R. unit, an elite U.S. Army group tasked with investigating supernatural phenomena. The plot involves a private military company's secret research program that accidentally releases a powerful psychic, as well as a paranormal menace in the form of a young girl named Alma Wade. The series includes two standalone expansion packs for the first game—Extraction Point (2006) and Perseus Mandate (2007)—but these are no longer considered canon, as their plots were ignored in later main entries. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, set immediately after the first game, follows Sgt. Michael Becket of Delta Force, who awakens in a strange hospital and finds that Alma has taken an interest in him. F.E.A.R. 3 takes place nine months after Project Origin, with Alma's pregnancy nearing its end. Point Man is rescued by a resurrected Paxton Fettel, and the two return to Fairport, with Point Man seeking to prevent Alma from giving birth, while Fettel has a different motive. All games feature common weapons and the 'reflex time' slow-motion mechanic. With the exception of F.E.A.R. 3, campaigns are single-player only; F.E.A.R. 3 offers single-player or co-op and is the only game to let the player choose the playable character.

Reader's Guide

The original F.E.A.R. received very strong reviews and was celebrated as a defining title in the FPS genre, both for its mechanics and innovations in AI technology. Subsequent games in the series were not as well-received; while their mechanics were generally lauded, a common complaint was that the psychological horror elements lost potency with each entry. The original game sold very well, but after F.E.A.R. 3 failed to meet commercial expectations, the mainline series went on hiatus. The series' publishing rights were initially owned by Vivendi Games, who published the original game and expansions under the Sierra Entertainment label. In 2008, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment acquired the rights and published Project Origin and F.E.A.R. 3. The complete series was released on Steam in July 2012, and the entire franchise was added to Microsoft's backward compatibility program in November 2021, making the games playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

Did You Know?

• The original F.E.A.R. was released in October 2005 for Windows, with a Director's Edition that included both a CD-ROM and DVD version of the game, a Dark Horse comic prequel, and a live-action prequel.
• The expansion packs Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate were developed by TimeGate Studios and are no longer considered canon.
• F.E.A.R. 3 is the only game in the series that can be played in co-op mode and offers a choice of playable character.
• F.E.A.R. Online, a free-to-play game, entered open beta in October 2014 but its servers were shut down in 2015 while still in open beta.