I'm probably one of the few people who was around for the hype building up to Cry of Fear's release in the Half-Life modding scene back in the late 2000s/early 2010s, particularly a group of dedicated fans ofAndreas Ronnberg and James Marchant's previous mod Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut. Cry of Fear exists as a sort of swan song for that entire subculture and remains as the most impressive achievement of the GoldSource engine even to this day.

I remember counting down the days to its release in middle school and pissing off my brother by downloading it while he was playing World of Warcraft, thus making him lag quite badly during raids. I remember how the original release had to be delayed by a single day because donators on the forums were given the release link earlier and promptly leaked it, thus crashing the servers. I remember being hesitant to torrent the mod because I equated torrenting with piracy, which was illegal and therefore scary.

But little about the game itself stands out to me in hindsight, especially not compared to the way that Afraid of Monsters permanently imprinted itself onto my psyche and continues to be a subtle influence on my tastes. It's a far better game in almost every front and bested anything that came before or after on the GoldSource engine, but looking back on it now I didn't find the experience to be nearly as gripping. I think in this way the comparatively high production values and slick, clean production comes across as a little flavorless and lacks personality when compared to the endearing charm of its spiritual predecessor's MS Paint graphics and bootleg MP3 soundtrack.

To quote a friend who I haven't spoken to in over a decade, whom I met playing on the Afraid of Monsters Sven Co-Op server and bonded with over a shared love of Afraid of Monsters and horror gaming: "It just isn't AoM."