The upcoming horror shooter from veteran developer Monolith, Project Origin, has had a name change for the better - it’s now to be known as F.E.A.R. 2, now the official sequel to the first game in the series, F.E.A.R., also developed by Monolith. Confused? You should be.

In 2005, Monolith released an action horror shooter called F.E.A.R., published under the Vivendi/Sierra label who had acquired Monolith, thus owning all of their franchise branding, including the name, F.E.A.R. Monolith was then acquired by Warner Bros. This meant that, while Monolith didn’t own the rights to the F.E.A.R. brand, they did own the intellectual property as far as characters and plot were concerned. As a result, Monolith began work on a ‘spiritual’ sequel to the original F.E.A.R., but decided to name it Project Origin (a name chosen by the F.E.A.R. community), while Vivendi/Sierra began work on ‘real’ sequel, F.E.A.R. 2.

Roll on 2008 where Activision merges with Vivendi Games and, including some games being cut from their future release line-up, some properties went unattended, such as the F.E.A.R. franchise. Monolith and Warner Bros. decided to cash in on the situation and announced that they have acquired the F.E.A.R. brand to use as they please. They please to use it as the official name of their now official sequel to their own original game, renaming their ‘spiritual’ sequel from Project Origin to F.E.A.R. 2, now the ‘real’ sequel. The name will still retain the old moniker and the game will be known as F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, as a result of an already sizable amount of press interest and marketing invested in the Project Origin name.

Not only that, but a US release date of February 10th 2009 has been announced for the game. Monolith has definitely got a lot of proving to do in order to top their previous effort, but as the developers of Shogo, No One Lives Forever (1 and 2) as well as Condemned (1 and 2), they are more than up to the task.