Developer Monolith and publisher Warner Brothers Interactive have been working on a sequel to their 2005 first person shooter F.E.A.R. for some time and during E3 we got a chance to see a behind-closed-doors demo of the game. The new game does not have a title yet (the title F.E.A.R. is owned by the game's original publisher Vivendi Games) and as such Warner Brothers did not issue any screenshots or other assets for the sequel during E3 nor did they grant any interviews. The new name should be revealed soon.

The demo began with a trailer that showed three scenes; a crashed helicopter in an urban environment; a first person sequence where you take out the original game's cloaked enemies and a third person sequence where we saw a person looking past a street corner, then running away as a massive red mech-like machine started machine gunning her. All three sequences showed off Monolith's impressive new graphics engine tech with detailed models and textures and great looking effects that are a distinct improvement over the original game's graphics which were advanced for 2005.

The actual demo then began with a sequence that showed doctors operating on what appears to be your playable character; we were told that the new game will have a new protagonist and that it begins 30 minutes before the first game ends. The operation doesn't appear to be going well; th e doctors are seen in flashes poking at your character in bloody detail. Finally the demo's playable version began with your character waking up and seeing no one around in a hospital but with the mysterious child Alma seen in silhouette for about one second. The character picks up some glasses on a table that turns into the game's HUD as well as a pistol.

The remainer of the demo showed the character exploring the hospital and dealing with similar situations from the first game; lots of smart AI enemies try to shoot you; lots of blood (some with messages) on the walls; lots of spooky ghostly moments of stuff that you can hear but you can't quite see. The final part of the demo showed your character being drawn into what looked like a giant flesh hole that becomes part of the hospital wall as Alma looks at you.

The demo was brief and was mainly a way to show some of the sequel's new graphics as well as a way to show that Monolith will still make the game an intense action experience with some creepy themes. Indeed our demo operator told us they think of the game as a combat game rather than a horror title. He also told us that there will be more environments than the hospital and that the game will avoid the sameness of settings that the first game had.

It's still way too early to tell of this sequel will match the original game but the new visuals are already impressive and the promise of new settings and advanced AI, among other features, sounds great. We will be keeping an eye out on the sequel before it's planned release in 2008. Meanwhile the publisher will reveal the top three titles for the game in about 10 days or so as part of a contest with the final name being voted on by fans. Hopefully when the final name is selected we will have some screenshots to show you.

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