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Fear Effect Reinvented heading to Switch, PS4, XB1, Steam.

Link.

Trailer.

Over the past few years, we've seen a phenomenon of classic games returning to our TV screens.

XCOM, Turok, System Shock, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic Mania... all examples of titles that have been recreated or recommissioned by the fans that grew up playing them in the 1990s and early 2000s. And some (although certainly not all) have enjoyed even more success a second time around.

Today comes the news of another retro revival. Square Enix Collective - the division at the publisher devoted to indie game development - has announced a remake of the 2000 PS1 game Fear Effect.

The history of Fear Effect is short-lived. Two popular action adventure games were released in 2000 and 2001, featuring an intriguing female lead character (Hana) and a cinematic story. But a planned PS2 game, Fear Effect Inferno, was never completed and that is where the story ended.

Then in 2014 Square Enix created its Collective division. The team wanted to work with indie developers in a variety of ways, and was even allowing studios to utilise some of its back catalogue IP should they wish. French studio Sushee were huge fans of the original Fear Effect titles, so took Square Enix up on its offer and pitched a real-time tactical game: Fear Effect Sedna. It was a different take on the IP and the Collective team was intrigued, so they took the game to Kickstarter, where it received the backing it needed.

Yet the fans wanted more, including the chance to revisit the original titles, so Square Enix granted Sushee permission to create Fear Effect Reinvented - a full reworking 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," recalls Benjamin Anseaume, CEO of Sushee. "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.

"One thing has always been clear with Square Enix, if the reception was enthusiastic enough, we could imagine doing everything with this licence and it included remaking the old episodes. We said this to the community quickly after the announcement of Sedna and today we are very happy to say that it's thanks to the fan's support that everyone will be able to play, on every platform, this old classic in its new shape."

Phil Elliott, director of indie development at Square Enix London, continues: "Originally we wanted to see if opening up our back catalogue of Western IP could help indie developers to make a name for themselves, considering how tough it can be to make a splash with original IP. So when Sushee pitched Fear Effect Sedna after finishing on Goetia [a point-and-click adventure also published by Collective], we were open to the experiment.

"We've seen a good response to this new game - albeit presented in a different style to make it more appropriate for the budgets available at indie level. And so when the Sushee team suggested revisiting the original game, we felt it was a good idea, especially when you consider that as an original PlayStation exclusive, anybody wanting to sample it now would have a tough time."

More at the link.

2018, PC/PS4/Switch/XB1
 

Lime

Member
Wow a remake of the first Fear Effect? That's pretty nice and I definitely did not see that coming. Not sure how they'll update the 90's gore 'n tits that the game originally banked on.

Hopefully this will leave a much better taste in the mouth than that Sedna game with its incredibly low budget. But I see that it's the same developers as the Kickstarter game, so I'm not sure how they plan to execute properly on remastering/remaking the game. Sushee has very talented visual artists, but the gameplay designers have room to improve much more.

A visual from the remake, which they call "Fear Effect: Reinvented"
Screen_Shot_2017_08_21_at_08.26.28.png
 
Yo no way!
Both 1&2 getting hd release? I wonder if today's player will take to the gameplay. It was pretty hard back in the day.
 

deadstar72

Neo Member
Wow, this was unexpected. Never got around to playing any of the fear effect games so looking forward to it. I wonder what they mean though by it being in a different style?
 

dreamfall

Member
Holy goodness! I never thought we'd see the day, I've got my original PS1 discs for both games! An updated control scheme along with the ability to play it old school is such a nice touch. After Sedna, I kept wondering if they'd ever try to Remaster the games. This is awesome!
 
No. Fucking. Way?!

Out of bloody nowhere but I could not be happier! Bloody loved the original PS1 games, so I'm hyped as fuck for this!
 
Wow. As a huge fan of the original, I don't really know what to make of this. Didn't see it coming, that's for sure.

I'd probably be happier if they went out of their way to finish up Inferno instead, since it was so near completion.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
This and RE2 in the same year probably.

The 90's are really back. Well, 2000 is close enough.
 

Shiggy

Member
Forever Entertainment Board S.A. announces that it has concluded the negotiations and has determined the terms of an important trilateral agreement between Forever Entertainment S.A., Square Enix Limited of Great Britain and Sushee, France.

The purpose of the contract is to create and release the Fear Effect Reinvented game on PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in 2018. The exact launch date will be forwarded to a separate current report.

Fear Effect Reinvented is a remade version of Fear Effect 1. The original version of the game was released in 2000 and was well received by both critics and players, and sold around a million copies of Fear Effect 1 in the world. Excellent result. The new version will feature completely new graphics _for today's standards _ and a few modifications to the game so that the game will become more attractive to today's players, while remaining faithful to the original in terms of features. The first game material will be presented through Square Enix, Sushee and FE news channels in the form of a press release tomorrow at 13:00 Polish time.

Division of roles:

Square Enix - publisher, IP owner

Sushee - development,

FE - Co - Producer, marketing on Steam, financing.

For its participation in the FE project, FE will receive a significant share of the revenue of 40% _ from each sold game on all platforms. In the opinion of the Board, the release of the new version of Fear Effect 1 will significantly increase the interest of the market and gamers with the Fear Effect series, and thus will also have a positive impact on the sale of Fear Effect Sedna from which FE will generate revenue. RB 13/2016 of September 23, 2016_Fear Effect Reinvented will have a big impact on the Company's performance in the coming years. Refreshed versions of well-known and highly popular games are gaining popularity among gamers, such as the refreshed version of Crash N. Sane Trilogy and Resident Evil 1 have been extremely successful in the market and at the moment there is a lot of interest in the forthcoming release of Resident Evil 1. Evil 2, which is an optimistic forecast of the sales potential of refreshing games that were market hits.

The Company plans to cover the costs related to the execution of the above agreement from own resources.

https://newconnect.pl/komunikat?geru_id=111806



Sushee is also working on Fear Effect Sedna.
 

Lime

Member
I posted this in the other thread, but the developers Sushee have great visual artists (look at the cinematics in the Sedna sequel), but their game design is really bad. They're a small studio and they operate in smaller budgets, so this is to be expected, but it only means that people should probably temper their expectations until proven otherwise.
 

Mengetsu

Member
Wow I didn't think they would do a remake! When that program was announced I figured they would reboot the old IP's. This game deserves it as it was a gem on the PSX.

Now remake parasite eve :(

Don't play with my heart...I've been wanting this since they had the PS2/GameCube remake happening and then canceled it 🙁
 

Vlaphor

Member
Fuck yes! Granted, I think that the sequel is a much better game, but hopefully this will lead to that. Still, day one.
 

ggx2ac

Member
I'm more shocked that it's a multiplatform game including Switch than the announcement of an old game coming back via remaster.

Edit: Oh, threads merged. I thought I double posted.
 

Vlaphor

Member
Cool.

Id love that square-enix collective thing do Parasite Eve next. if its eligible.

The problem with that is that Parasite Eve is a license, one that Square doesn't have anymore (hence the psp game being called The Third Birthday).
 
I posted this in the other thread, but the developers Sushee have great visual artists (look at the cinematics in the Sedna sequel), but their game design is really bad. They're a small studio and they operate in smaller budgets, so this is to be expected, but it only means that people should probably temper their expectations until proven otherwise.
I really love fixed camera games like Resident Evil.
 

UrbanRats

Member
I'll keep an eye on this.
I loved the first FE back in the day, they could do without some of the 90s sillyness, but the cyberpunk vibe and the Chinese setting (rural and urban) was fantastic.

They're moving away from cel shading though, so i'm curious to see how that turns out.

also, the original played like shit at the time, let alone now... they'd have to work a lot to make in enjoyable on that front.
 

Lime

Member
You have done some outstanding work with the cutscenes and the concept art! Those are definitely the highlight of the Sedna game, I'd say, considering the low budget. (although the looping background sex scene in the Paris cutscene is awkward as hell)

The isometric perspective could work, but the problem is that Sushee simply do not have the talent/capacity/budget to execute on that particular genre. Even as an isometric action-puzzle game, it fails completely with unengaging and tedious combat that doesn't make sense. I'm not sure how they'll execute with this remaster.

Are you hired/working on Reinvented as well? Sushee should be proud if you're on board.
 
Wow I wasn't expecting Fear Effect to ever come back. I always thought they were niche games. I never played it, so this might be a good chance to try them out.
 

Shifty

Member
Hell yeah tank controls.

I remember seeing this in local game stores all the time as a kid but never got the chance to try it. Gimme.
 
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