F.E.A.R. is a series of horror video games that has divided fans into three groups: those who find the creepy little girl archetype appealing; those who find it repulsive. The terrifying young girl’s world has reached western viewers not just through movies but also through video games like the Fatal Frame and Silent Hill series. By the time we met Alma, we had previously seen Yuko and Toshio from The Grudge, a horrific mother-son duo, and Samara from The Ring three years prior.
Let me give you a little introduction to the stated character before we delve into the details.
Alma Wade, a powerful psychic who seeks vengeance on Armacham Technology Corporation for utilizing her in a number of gruesome experiments and clandestine projects with the aim of commercializing her skills, is the series’ main antagonist.
Alma Wade Origin – A Circumstantial Victim, Not Villain
To adequately communicate the tale, we should start at the beginning. As a young child, Alma Wade had pale skin, dark eyes, and dark brown hair. She was distinct from the other kids, tended to keep to herself, and excelled in hide and seek. On August 26, 1979, she was born; however, her mother did not survive the birth.
Alma possesses strange and unusual psychic abilities that cause her to experience nightmares almost every night. She was able to pick up on people’s most negative sentiments despite having no power to suppress them. She piqued the interest of Armacham Technology Corporation or ATC.
Alma’s psychic powers were put to the test, and she acquitted herself admirably. She was also subjected to tests as ATC tried to figure out where her abilities came from and what they could achieve. She was, nevertheless, a bright little lady who, at the age of five, began to employ strategies.
She would deliberately fail examinations in order to make the business lose interest in her and stop researching her. When that failed, she set fire to one of the laboratories. The scientists who were studying Alma began to have nightmares and mood swings. Alma was attacking them.
Armacham needed to figure out how to manage her abilities as quickly as possible. She was taken into Project Origin when she was seven years old, with the goal of creating psychics from a single original source. Just days before her eighth birthday, Alma was put into a coma and imprisoned in the Vault, a circular facility concealed within the Origin Facility, a location that was kept secret.
Alma’s talents were mainly intended to be blocked by the Vault. This might have happened because the tiny girl had finally taken her first life, giving Armacham a reason to confine her in order to keep themselves safe. Alma was still experimented on while imprisoned. She was even pregnant with cloned embryos created from her own DNA joined with that of Origin members, including her father, Harlan Wade.
When she was just 15 years old, she gave birth to the First Prototype, the Point Man, and a year later, Paxton Fettel. When Alma’s mind united with Fettel’s at the age of ten, the first Synchronicity Event occurred, forcing ATC to shut down Project Origin and “pull the plug” on Alma. Alma’s life support was turned off in the Vault when she was 26 years old, leading ATC to assume she had died.
According to Harlan Wade, her physical body died six days after life support was removed. Still, her psychic energy lingered long after her heart stopped, propelled by the anger of her angry, rageful soul, according to F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Her spirit, however, was still trapped inside the Vault with her corpse, and she remained essentially inactive for the next twenty years.
People in the vicinity of her body began to feel uneasy or unwell during this period, and the place was finally abandoned. Employees at Armacham were terrified of Alma’s abilities, so they sealed down the facility where her body was kept, refusing to reopen it until twenty years had gone.
Despite ATC scientists’ warnings that strands of Alma’s mental talents may still be alive twenty years after her death, ATC president Genevieve Aristide reopens the Origin Facility. She dispatches a team to examine the facility’s state. Alma kills the squad, and the team vanishes.
Genevieve sends a second crew, but they disappear as well. Genevieve locks the facility after realising that the reopening of the Origin site had somehow reawakened Alma’s soul. A few days later, Alma comes to Fettel and causes a second Synchronicity Event, prompting Fettel to go rogue and seize command of a Replica army.
Fettel tracks down and murders Charles Habegger, whom he cannibalises in the hopes of obtaining his victim’s thoughts through their flesh. He and Alma learn of a study that ATC staff are working on regarding water pollution in the Auburn District. The two went out to find the persons listed on the report, maybe in the hopes of learning where Alma’s body was. They go to the South River Wastewater
Treatment Plant first, where Alma tries to assassinate the Point Man. The Point Man lives despite Alma’s attempts, and Alma gets intrigued by him. She begins to come to him at irregular intervals, constantly keeping an eye on him but never harming him.
Fettel and Alma then proceed to the headquarters of Armacham Technology Corporation. They kill everyone at the wastewater facility and ATC headquarters, whether or not they are aware of Project Origin and Alma. Alma continues to observe the Point Man and soon discovers that he is her son.
Soon later, Alma and Fettel hear about the Origin facility’s location and set out to find it from ATC’s headquarters. Along the way, Fettel manages to abduct Alma’s sister, Alice Wade, and murder her in front of Alma. According to Genevieve Aristide in the field guide, Alma was likely envious of Alice because of their father’s special care of her and thus wanted to watch her murder.
Harlan Wade releases Alma’s actual body, which Alma’s presence has revived, and she takes on the form of a nude, malnourished young lady within the Origin facility. Alma kills Harlan right away and then walks around the complex, exorcising Nightmares wherever she goes. Soon later, Alma induces a hallucination in the Point Man.
Still, it is replaced with a recollection that exposes Alma to be Harlan’s daughter and the revelation that the Point Man is Alma’s son. Alma reaches out to him in the memory, begging that her child be returned to her, only to be met with severe opposition by her father. She approaches the Point Man and tries to hug him, but he is compelled to shoot her many times until she vanishes because her touch is dangerous.
When the Vault detonates, the Point Man walks down a hallway on his way out of the building. The Point Man is thrown unconscious by the blast and is subsequently located by Jin, Holiday, and Delta Force pilot Bremmer and carried on board a Black Hawk by Jin, Holiday, and Delta Force pilot Bremmer.
There is a heavy pounding sound against the side of the Black Hawk as they examine the mushroom cloud of the blast and the devastation to Auburn and Fairport. When Jin asks the Point Man what it is, the Point Man stands there watching Alma’s elderly, emaciated body arrive in the helicopter doorway, pushing herself inside.
Alma’s presence is felt significantly more in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin than in the first F.E.A.R., owing to her mental link with Michael Becket, who is unaware of his role in the Harbinger programme. Parallel to Becket’s telepathic signal, this relationship develops stronger throughout the course of the game.
Several of Dark Signal’s male members develop obsessive fixations on Alma during the game, as her psychic signal essentially pushes them towards reproductive aggressiveness while she is effectively “in heat” and desires to procreate with one of them.
Alma is now free and motivated to avenge all of the wrongs that have been done to her, picking up where the original game left off. Alma’s release blazed a peculiar orange at the end of F.E.A.R. It seemed that her time in captivity only strengthened her. Her body took six days to die when she was taken off life support all those years ago, but her mental imprint remained. Alma now poses a threat to the entire globe as she works to remake reality in her image.
Michael is a member of Dark Signal, a Delta Force squad. He wasn’t a very bright youngster, but as an adult, he sprang into the military like he was born to do so, becoming highly hazardous to a regular person. Like The Point Man, Michael has undergone surgical enhancements, almost as though he’s being transformed into the image of the man.
While he’s always had a sharp concentration and fast reflexes, ATC’s improvements have effectively transformed him into a superhuman. When Michael stumbles upon Alma on a swing by a tree, he sees her in her ideal image as a tiny girl wearing a red dress. He has a hallucination of a city being destroyed and Alma entering our world before he can get near enough to reach her. All of this happens around thirty minutes before the first game ends.
By the conclusion of this game, Alma has been reanimating the troops slain in the previous game. On top of that, there are now mechs, massive mechs that anybody, even Michael, can utilise. The paranormal attacks become more frequent, but Michael saves another of his comrades, Keira Stokes. They are forced to witness while Alma assassinates their Master Sergeant, Cedric Griffin.
Alma has discovered something new about herself in this game, and she wants to tell Michael about it. She lets go of him and takes his hand in hers, resting it over her bloated stomach. Alma is expecting a child. As the events come to a close, Michael hears the kid, his child, murmur “Mommy” in Alma’s belly.
Fear 2: Reborn reveals Alma’s second son, Paxton, is still alive in some fashion. The player is up against Foxtrot 813, a Replica soldier in the game. Alma and Paxton, it turns out, are far too similar. While some people choose more traditional rebirth techniques, Paxton has chosen a different path. Foxtrot 813 is his instrument for returning to the living world.
In Fear 3, the Point Man has been arrested by Armacham Security. He is being interrogated in a jail someplace in South America, nine months after the events of Fear 1, 2, and Reborn. Paxton interrupts and frees his elder brother, maybe in his first act as a lovely sibling.
They develop a strange bond as they flee together. They are currently reliant on one another to live. They make it back to other F.E.A.R. agents, who notify them of what they’ve missed. In the first game, those who survived the explosion, mainly civilians, were either executed by ATC or driven insane by the area’s extreme amounts of paranormal activity. The Point Man still has a mission to complete: to beat his mother, and it appears that Paxton will be by his side this time.
They also learn what has happened to Michael Becket, who is still alive. He’s on his way to an unknown destination on an Armacham transport. The transport is attacked by Alma’s sons, who deploy any personnel they can locate. When they approach Michael, Paxton, who isn’t known for his patience, takes control of him and demands answers. Unfortunately, Michael does not survive the possession, as he explodes as Paxton releases him.
In terms of the end outcome, two main routes might be chosen. It all hinges on whether the player is Paxton or The Point Man, as both characters are playable. Interesting fact: in co-op mode, the person with the most incredible score determines the conclusion since the stronger player controls their character’s fate. The Point Man, as is well known, has a happy ending.
The Point Man and Paxton are still adversaries, and there can only be one of them, much like Highlander. They struggle to outrun each other, and towards the conclusion of Point Man, he defeats his younger brother by shooting him three times in the head. On the other hand, Alma is fading away now that the baby has been delivered. Is she a reincarnation? The Point Man exits the room with the infant in his arms, hearing in a transmission that all is finally finished. Almost a year of paranormal devastation appeared to be coming to an end… What about Alma and the new baby, though?
In the downbeat ending, the younger sibling of Paxton succeeds in overpowering and dominating the Point Man, seizing him in the “evil” or terrible end. Before carefully storing the youngster, he manages to take the child from his mother’s womb, pledging to nurture this new sibling as his own. Paxton immediately turns on her, fiercely assaulting and… devouring her.
To this point, the F.E.A.R. franchise has come to an end. The final game, F.E.A.R. 3, was released in June 2011, and, owing to studio disagreements, it is still considered the series’ finale because no further games have been released since. In 2015, there were speculations of a possible 4th chapter, albeit it might be challenging to implement. After all, Fear 3 has two endings, each reasonably distinct. If either the Point Man or Paxton survives with the kid, the studios will have to develop two routes in the fourth installment or choose one of the Fear 3 endings as the official ending.
What Makes Her So Fearsome?
Alma is shown to have the capacity to conjure ghostly apparitions known as nightmares in the latter stages of the first F.E.A.R. game. These creatures take the appearance of black shadows and only emerge as an upper torso, assaulting the protagonist with a simple mêlée strike while simultaneously destroying themselves. They also have a habit of attacking in huge groups. Nightmares appear in Project Origin, although they have a distinct new look. They resemble a human body shade, shining brilliantly with vitality.
There are two varieties of spooks that appear: one that is just a spook that vanishes when the player gets too close, and another that attacks the player. They don’t have an actual body because they can move through solid things to attack the player by diving into them and destroying them. While they are fragile, they may move quickly and kill the player in a matter of seconds.
More creatures are added in F.E.A.R. Extraction Point. One is a wall-crawling spider-like monster with unknown powers because it never assaults the player; the other is an almost invisible humanoid phantom with glaring red eyes that depends on mêlée attacks and is occasionally observed murdering Replica troops.
These phantoms also manifest as an emaciated corpse-like apparition during Douglas Holiday and Jin Sun-deaths. Kwon’s One of these corpses may be observed morphing into one of the unseen phantoms mid-jump against the double doors in one portion of Auburn Memorial Hospital, preventing the entries from opening and blocking the player from that entrance.
Trivia Time
Let’s take a good look at some of the less known facts about our beloved Alma.
Those familiar with horror films in the early 2000s would recognise where F.E.A.R.’s creators took Alma’s shape, mentality, and even her abilities. The Japanese famous horror film from 1998, Ring or Ringu serves as a huge inspiration. Sadako or Samara is a more scary and destructive version of her. Alma, like Sadako, has a lot of psychic abilities, which means she can kill people just by thinking about it. She seldom does it bluntly since she wants to dominate and punish her victims because she is a vindictive and vicious demon.
Eventually, the firearms company, Armacham, caught on to Alma’s plans. They discovered Alma didn’t murder because she was still a child with strong values. Unfortunately, Armacham escalated their torture by putting Alma in comas on a regular basis in order to keep her helpless.
This continued from her youth until her adulthood. Alma eventually knew nothing but the cold metallic walls of a facility and the disdainful expressions of her keepers. Armacham, in a way, produced its own monster. They raised Alma as a tool and guinea pig rather than as a kid with emotional and psychological needs.
Alma appears in three different incarnations throughout the three major F.E.A.R. games. They’re all creepy and make you want to sleep. Her pale infant form, in which she wears a scarlet dress and has long straight hair covering much of her face, is the first. The second is most likely her natural and current appearance, which is that of a skeletal lady with slimy skin and long, greasy hair. The third is a deception in which she poses as a luscious and healthy (but yet ghastly) lady to entice someone. In any event, all three types are causing havoc.
Alma created the third or the most attractive version as she finally identified the ideal candidate among the Dark Signal members. That man is none other than Michael Becket, the protagonist of F.E.A.R. 2. Alma was continuously flinging herself at Becket, something many players probably didn’t realise in the initial playtime. Alma became enamoured with Becket, and it was even hinted in the game that she had formed feelings for him. Unfortunately, she never learned how to be a regular human or speak and instead relied on her instincts, violating Becket whenever she had the opportunity.
Time for the last piece of Trivia, maybe Alma didn’t have the same impact as some of gaming’s most memorable villains, but she did earn a nod from The Cabin in the Woods, a tremendously successful horror film. It featured a ghastly girl with psychic talents who could vaporise her unlucky victim. Seems Familiar right?
That’s it for this video. If you enjoyed the sesh, then do drop in and share the video with your buddies. If you want to know about some other iconic gaming characters, then do let us know in the comment section. See you in the next one.