Fear Effect, the cel-shaded PlayStation action romp, is getting the remaster treatment. It’s been 17 years since it first launched, and now it’s being resurrected by Sushee as Fear Effect Reinvented. Sushee is also the studio behind Fear Effect Sedna, a real-time tactics game.
Fear Effect Reinvented is part of Square Enix’s Collective initiative, where the publisher works with indie developers and even gives them access to its large back catalogue of games. Sushee successfully pitched their idea for Fear Effect Sedna, but after it was announced it became clear that there was a strong desire for remakes of the original.
"As soon as we announced Sedna and the revival of the franchise in April 2016, we got a lot of emails, tweets and Facebook messages to request remakes of the first episodes, and more surprisingly, a release of Fear Effect Inferno," Benjamin Anseaume, CEO of Sushee, tells GamesIndustry.biz. "And the messages haven't stopped since then. More than a year and a half after, we still receive this kind of request very often.”
Fear Effect Inferno was the third planned game in the series, but it never saw the light of day. Maybe it finally will, but in the meantime we’ve got the remastered version of the first game to look forward to. It’s getting a graphics overhaul and update controls.
"We won't be making a simple remake, we want to stay as close as possible to the original, but important aspects of the game will evolve,” says Anseaume. “Graphics, of course, as you can see in the announcement trailer... we tried to find a very modern, yet respectful artistic direction - and I must say we're very excited with what we've done so far.
"The second big evolution are the controls. I don't know if you've played Fear Effect and Fear Effect: Retro Helix recently, but—unlike the rest of the game—the controls didn't age very well. We will propose a more modern experience with more fluid controls. But we're also thinking about the hardcore fans and we'll let them play with the old controls.”
Fear Effect Reinvented is due out in 2018.
