Trepang2 and FEAR: Turns Out, It’s a Spiritual Sequel

The concept of a "spiritual sequel" or "spiritual successor", whether by the same creator or a different development team, is hardly new in the video game industry. From Back 4 Blood to The Outer Worlds and The Callisto Protocol, spiritual sequels are, in fact, all the rage nowadays. So much so, that they exist in their own little niche separate from remakes, remasters, or any other such notion. Nowhere is this approach more visible, however, than with Trepang2 and FEAR, with the former follow-up clearly directly inspired by its spiritual predecessor as a fully-fledged realization of the original title.

There's a little bit of context needed here for those who weren't there on day one of FEAR's release, however. Because First Encounter Assault Recon, as beloved as it might be, wasn't quite as big of a game as its narrative initially implied. Did Trepang2 resolve that problem? In some ways, perhaps. Let us explain!

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A Spiritual Sequel - Trepang2 and FEAR Put Side-by-Side

Ever since Trepang2's demo first launched years ago, it was plainly obvious what the developer was attempting to do with its source material. After all, the FEAR franchise hadn't gone anywhere for close to a decade at that point, discounting the sequels, and the concept was absolutely prime for a new high-octane offering. A team of special operatives duking it out with other spec ops and various para-natural circumstances? Stellar stuff! But, how do you re-package the basic premise, with similar themes, in an original manner?

Well, you could go the Control way and revamp it entirely. Delivering something similar in spirit, but mechanically not. Trepang2 chose to go the other way, in many ways copying and modernizing FEAR itself to a T, much like a proper spiritual successor should.

Make no mistake, Trepang2 is a FEAR game in all but name. In fact, one might go far enough to claim that it's a truer spiritual sequel than either of the actual First Encounter Assault Recon sequels we actually got! Now, to be fair, it doesn't have all the nuance of its inspiration, but it succeeds as a spiritual successor in more places than it fails.

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FEAR and Small Universes

Setting aside the spiritual sequel gameplay for a bit, FEAR succeeded where few other games do. It set up a universe so big and promising that the actual content of the game never got around to accommodate it all. That's not necessarily a problem, mind, but FEAR's narrative merely hinted at the protagonist's actual job. F.E.A.R. stands for First Encounter Assault Recon, after all: a government agency dedicated specifically to handling paranatural threats.

Point Man never does get around to doing this fancy government gig in this spiritual successor, however. Immediately, we are thrust into the midst of a threat that's very much centered around the nature of Point Man himself. In other words, yeah, the universe of FEAR does have other monsters, ghosts, and whatnot else, and they're prominent enough that the American government has an actual on-the-book agency dedicated to dealing with them. Yet, we don't get to see any of that.

Just like all true spiritual successors, it feels like the devs of Trepang2 set out to right this wrong of its spiritual predecessor.

Play F.E.A.R. today!

Hyper-Stylized Combat is Just The Start

Now that the spiritual successor Trepang2's come out, everyone's talking about its stylish combat and just how awesome it is. With good reason, too: it's one of the finest FPS gameplay loops we've ever seen. It's not perfect by any means, but if someone was to jump ahead and announce a remake of the first FEAR game... well, this is the bar to clear. Since everyone's talking about combat, though, that's not what we're interested in here.

Trepang2 is basically obsessed with letting you see and, yes, kill all the threats you come across. It's the insane realization of everything that FEAR hinted at. Sure enough, there is a larger-than-life narrative concerning the protagonist, 106, and the nature of his abilities. Players are free to go and play side-missions at any point in time, however, and this makes us think that the devs just wanted to give players the sort of paranatural combat simulator that FEAR may have been pitched as.

This was accomplished by combining FEAR with SCP, as it were, and it works well enough to be enjoyable throughout.

Does Trepang2 Do a Better Job, Really?

The spiritual sequel,  Trepang2, does get way more self-indulgent than FEAR ever did, it's worth pointing out. It's a game with a huge hero complex: the player needs to be able to kill anything and everything thrown at it and, in approaching its narrative this way, it feels more like DOOM than its obvious inspiration ever wanted to be.

That's fair, of course, but expecting a measured, tactical experience out of Trepang2 is the wrong way of going about things. This may also suggest what we believe is the game's only real downside: it's too hectic, too explosive, too ridiculously violent to match FEAR and outpace it in every area of gameplay. Notably its atmosphere and the general spookiness of it all.

That's fine, though: Trepang2 ekes out its own identity. It's FEAR without inhibition: the sort of FPS you play to unwind and enjoy yourself after a hard day. In some ways, this spiritual successor is so much better than anything that came before. In others, it's just not. That's more than fine, though and what you would expect from spiritual sequels or spiritual successors.

Those who'd like to see what FEAR might've been all about with a bigger, wider universe to explore need apply. Those, too, who need more of FEAR-style combat in their lives. And, really, haven't we covered just about everyone with these two categories? Check it out!

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