Sushee, Square Enix on why Fear Effect is being remade

An interesting announcement was made earlier today. The PlayStation game Fear Effect is receiving a remake, and it’s coming to Switch.

GamesIndustry caught up with a few people involved following the announcement. The site spoke with Sushee CEO Benjamin Anseaume, creative director Thibaut Romaggi, and Square Enix London indie development director Phil Elliot. They all touched on why the remake is happening, and their approach to the project.

Read some comments from Anseaume, Romaggi, and Elliot below. The full interview is located on GamesIndustry here.

Anseaume on why the remake is happening…

“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. 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.”

Elliott on the decision to remake Fear Effect…

“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.”

Anseaume on the approach to remaking the game…

“For Fear Effect Sedna, we were inspired by the Fear Effect universe and story. Working on an evolution of the characters was very interesting and ultimately, it is our take on the licence. But for Fear Effect Reinvented, we have to be as close as possible in terms of feeling, and also make it evolve to a more modern version. That means understanding what the original creators wanted, their vision and how they worked to create such an experience.

“Working on the improved graphics will be the biggest challenge. In the 1999 game, lots of the atmosphere relied on imagination – the low definition textures forced the players to create images in their heads. With today’s high definition, a lot of the work we’ll do will be creating high definition objects and textures, while staying true to the original atmosphere.”

Romaggi on staying true to the original while evolving it…

“We won’t be making a simple remake, we want to stay as close as possible to the original, but important aspects of the game will evolve. Graphics, of course, as you can see in the announcement trailer… we tried to find a very modern, yet respectful artistic direction – and I must say we’re very excited with what we’ve done so far.

“The second big evolution are the controls. I don’t know if you’ve played Fear Effect and Fear Effect: Retro Helix recently, but – unlike the rest of the game – the controls didn’t age very well. We will propose a more modern experience with more fluid controls. But we’re also thinking about the hardcore fans and we’ll let them play with the old controls.

“Beside that, the franchise is still modern enough, in term of story, ambience and characters, to catch the attention of lots of players.”