F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon is a survival horror first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Vivendi Universal Games and Warner Bros. Games. It was released on October 17, 2005, for Microsoft Windows, and ported by Day 1 Studios to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. TimeGate Studios has released two expansion packs, F.E.A.R. Extraction Point in October 2006, and F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate in November 2007. A direct sequel titled F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, was released in February 2009, and a second sequel, F.E.A.R. 3, was released in June 2011, which was developed by Day 1 Studios.
The game's story revolves around a supernatural phenomenon, which F.E.A.R.—a fictional special forces team—is called to contain. The player assumes the role of F.E.A.R.'s Point Man, who possesses superhuman reflexes, and must uncover the secrets of a paranormal menace in the form of Alma, a young girl.
F.E.A.R. was well received by critics, scoring 89% on GameRankings, and The New York Times calling it "as thrilling and involving as Half-Life". A "Director's Edition" DVD version of the game was also released. The DVD included a "Making of" documentary, a director's commentary, a short live-action prequel and the exclusive first episode of the promotional P.A.N.I.C.S. machinima. A related Dark Horse comic book was also packaged with the DVD. Along with the Director's Edition, F.E.A.R. Gold Edition was released. Gold Edition included the Director's Edition and Extraction Point. F.E.A.R. Platinum Edition features the original game and two expansion packs.
Plot[]
In the year 2025, the military contractor Armacham Technology Corporation (ATC) has developed an experimental unit of telepathically controlled clone supersoldiers known as the Replicas. Their psychic commander Paxton Fettel goes rogue and takes command of the Replica prototypes, seizing control of the ATC headquarters in Fairport, Washington and killing all occupants.
A covert special forces unit, F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon), is deployed to Fairport in response to the crisis. The team is commanded by Commissioner Rowdy Betters, and consists of Spencer Jankowski, Jin Sun-Kwon, and the newly-minted, unnamed Point Man. The team's mission is to eliminate Fettel, operating in conjunction with Delta Force. Fettel is located by means of a satellite tracking device and hunted by F.E.A.R. but manages to evade capture. F.E.A.R is later joined by Delta Force operatives led by Douglas Holiday to assist them in capturing Fettel. Over the course of the night, Jankowski mysteriously vanishes and the Point Man encounters heavy resistance from Replica soldiers and later from the elusive ATC employee Norton Mapes. He also witnesses unexplained, and occasionally life-threatening, paranormal phenomena, including increasingly-vivid hallucinations that frequently afflict him, all of which are centered on a red-dressed young girl named Alma.
Laptops and phone messages provide details regarding Fettel's background; as a part of ATC's "Project Origin", he was raised to become a telepathic commander of the Replicas and that he is the son of Alma, a powerful psychic. The files mention something called a "Synchronicity Event", in which a comatose Alma telepathically linked with Fettel when he was ten years old and resulted in several deaths. The files also mention the existence of another child of Alma, who was born before Fettel.
All clues lead F.E.A.R. to believe Fettel is being controlled by Alma, who was locked in the Origin facility when ATC closed down the project owing to the danger the woman posed; Fettel is searching for that same facility to free his mother. The Point Man travels to the abandoned structure, fighting back both the Replicas and ATC guards, who along with Mapes have received orders to cover up the whole affair. When the Point Man comes to finally face Fettel, he is drawn into a hallucination where the Point Man is Alma's first son and is thereafter enabled to kill Fettel himself. Fettel's death results in all Replica forces shutting down.
Alma is nonetheless freed when her storage chamber is opened by ATC researcher and leader of Project Origin, Harlan Wade, who feels guilty over the company's treatment of Alma and who is revealed to be her father. A wounded Mapes tasks the Point Man to sabotage the structure's reactor, running a gauntlet against Alma's ghosts before the whole location explodes. In the aftermath of the detonation, a Delta Force Black Hawk helicopter extracts the Point Man from the rubble, rescuing him. While he and the survivors of the F.E.A.R. team survey the results of the explosion from the helicopter, Jin wonders what happened to Alma. Just then, the helicopter loses power, and Alma is seen pulling herself up into the cabin: the destruction of the Origin facility has not stopped her quest to get closer to her son.
After the game's credits, the player can listen to a phone call between a mysterious senator and ATC president Genevieve Aristide, which offers some further explanation: the woman considers the project under control and deems the "first prototype" (presumably a reference to the Point Man) a success.