Horror shooter series FEAR continues with FEAR Online

The latest chapter in psychological horror first-person shooter series FEAR will be FEAR Online, in development with Koean-based Inplay Interactive for Windows PC, North American publisher Aeria Games announced today.

FEAR Online will be a free-to-play multiplayer title featuring several team-based combat modes across ten different maps. Teams of up to four players will take up arms against enemies, both human and inhuman alike. The Soul King mechanic from FEAR 3 will also be included in the game, allowing players to possess enemies to learn their abilities and collect wandering souls.

The game will further the franchise's overarching storyline following the psychic child Alma Wade and focus on the struggle between the FEAR elite team and the Armacham Technology Corporation. Events in FEAR Online will follow a storyline parallel to events from FEAR 2: Project Origin.

"We are thrilled to present the next entry in one of the most popular horror franchises of the last decade," said Aeria Games' vice president of PC games Tom Nichols in a press statement. "FEAR Online will bring back the tense, heart-pounding action that the series is known for and make it accessible to a huge online community of competitive players."

The first FEAR game, FEAR: First Encounter Assault Recon, was developed by Monolith Productions and published in 2005 by Vivendi Universal. Two expansions were released, Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate. The next numbered game, FEAR 2: Project Origin, was published by WB Games in 2009, with the expansion FEAR 2: Reborn coming later that year. FEAR 3 was developed by Day 1 Studios, which assisted in making the PS3 and Xbox 360 console ports of the original FEAR, and published by Warner Bros. Interactive in 2011.

Players interested in participating in the FEAR Online beta can sign up via the Aeria Games website.