When I was cruising the feeds today I came across a story that was so strange I had to do a post on it. As you may already be aware, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin is due for release in February, and promotions have begun in preparation for that. There has recently been a press release for the game, and in and of itself there is nothing strange about that, but the way in which it has been executed is about a 10 on the weird ‘o’ meter.
Mike Fahey, one of the guys over at Kotaku did a post shortly after Thanksgiving about a mysterious combination briefcase he had come into possession of, along with it video instructions from a shadowy figure (Zoinks). Mr. Shadow said to post an image of the briefcase on Kotaku and when it is confirmed that the image is on line he will send the combination for it via the F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin forums.
Well, Mike posted the image in an earlier post and low and behold a week later, shadowy figure guy posted the combination in the Project Origin forums. After all the waiting the briefcase was opened for the first time today and Mike posted the video on Kotaku. Once opened Mike discovered (as he predicted) a severed limb, nah just info on the upcoming F.E.A.R. 2 promotional event In New York.
Although we have seen some pretty meticulously crafted press releases before, this one certainly takes the cake. The briefcase wasn’t just delivered to Mike he had to follow instructions from an anonymous letter to go to a storage facility ( just two miles from his house) to pick up the briefcase. The fact that the guys over at Monolith were able to gather enough information to orchestrate this is really cool, and frankly a little scary. I think they should consider getting out of the game business and maybe give espionage a shot.
