F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin with Craig Hubbard

Interview - Monolith's designer gives us the creeps

We're gathered in what I can only describe as a haunted house in London's West End, enjoying a little hands-on time with Warner and Monolith's F.E.A.R. 2, the long-awaited FPS sequel due out in February. The game sports an intriguing mix of frights, story and gunplay, and keen to learn more about what the game's veteran creators have in store for us I sat down for a few words with principle designer Craig Hubbard.

The FPS landscape has changed since the first F.E.A.R....

All confined to all opened?

Yes... what have you learnt from this progression?

Well, we learned that there are some great things you can derive from that confined space. High intensity combat was something people commented on in the first F.E.A.R., and as we broadened our palette we expanded the volume of combat that was possible... so as soon as we started to broaden things it changed the combat, posed new questions and challenges, and that manifested itself in having us think about what we do with the AI to make use of the environment and the space. Now you have more areas to traverse... what does this do for the player? Ultimately this is why we let players craft their own cover and shape the environment. This changes how the combat can resolve.

So how far have you gone with the interactivity in that respect?

Well, there's quite a bit, I can't say that everything is interactive, but there's a lot that is and it all feels contextually right for the space. So, if you're running down a street, you can open car doors and use them as cover. If you want to you can open up both of them and create a really interesting 'fire channel', firing between and using it as a barricade.

F.E.A.R. must rely a lot on the story, how do you blend a sense of freedom with the necessity of furthering the plot?

Sure, right, that's a tough challenge. As soon as you start to broaden that palette, broaden the space, explore and adventure, you need to figure out ways to deliver story still. We realised that in regular combat you can create choke points, areas to funnel people to, or create areas of heavy activity in a confined space. Even though the space can be large, the combat can still be intense. We use that philosophy, we can leverage all that we've learnt about combat to create choke points for story. So, really by how we shape the environment we can create areas of intensity in which to deliver story. It is much easier to do this in smaller areas.

What are your influences when it comes to the set-pieces included in the experience?

So, there were a lot of changes we made when we approached F.E.A.R. 2, we needed to address the geography, the landscape, another thing was that people were saying we were grey/green, you know, the first game was quite monochrome. We wanted to address that. We used a lot of film techniques. Pixar does this... they create a colour story. Different scenes have particular colours. Colours give emotional responses, so as we move through the missions we move through hues. So, as you move through the game you're going to start to see different colours in the space. These will trigger responses.

The ladybug / tree frog / blue bird motif speaks to the underlying theme... as people become aware of colour they will see these patterns emerging. We have some great pay-off later in the game for those that start noticing this stuff.

I notice you mention movies. Has being part of Warner Bros changed the way you think about games?

It really hasn't. Its been awesome. They give us loads of autonomy. They never constrict us. They understand... we have a history of making quality games, and because of that they believe we have good ideas, a good method... they want to keep nurturing that. They never dictate how things should be, they really trust us to do the right thing.

Might Warner make a F.E.A.R. movie, perhaps?

That would be awesome! I'd love to see it... the universe is so rich. We have tonnes of back-story. We tried to hint a lot at that in F.E.A.R.; there were a lot of unanswered questions. So, in F.E.A.R. 2 we've swept through a lot of those old questions and made an effort to answer some of those, as well as posing a few new ones... because we have to... and ideally we'll answer a few of those and then as every good horror or action film does, you leave a few lingering...