Project Origin Puts F.E.A.R. In Our Eyes

First there was the ludicrous nonsense over Sierra vs. Monolith for the rights to make the sequel to F.E.A.R., and the subsequent debacle that took place with Monolith organising a competition for fans to rename their sequel, resulting in Project Origin. Meanwhile Sierra stomped off with the ball, refusing to play nicely with others, and pretended they were making their own sequel which they would call F.E.A.R. 2. What a to-do it all was. Well, Project Origin is to be renamed. Can anyone guess what it will be?

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Oh yes.

IGN reports that this is all thanks to the universal fallout that's occurred after the collision of the Activision and Blizzard/Sierra planets. FEAR's developers, Monolith, were bought by Warner Bros. in 2004, but the game was put out in 2005 by Sierra/Vivendi. Sierra owned the name therefore, and so Monolith set about making their own spiritual successor with a different title.

Then came the Activisierriblizzardsion Jeff Goldblum/fly-style merger, and in the resulting chaos a bunch of Vivendi/Sierra games are lost. So in response to this, Warner and Monolith have purchased the F.E.A.R. name, and thus their actually-being-developed sequel will bear the original name, and the half-arsed new name as a subtitle. It's out, peculiarly specifically, on 10th Feb next year.

The moral of this story? Putting fullstops in your game's name curses you to a lifetime of circular nonsense. Don't do it.