Fatal Frame

The titular first entry[lower-alpha 1] in the series was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001 in Japan and 2002 in North America and Europe.[6][7][8] The second game, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly,[lower-alpha 2] was released again for PlayStation 2 in 2003 in Japan and North America, and 2004 in Europe.[9][10][11] Fatal Frame III: The Tormented[lower-alpha 3] likewise released for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 for Japan and North America, and 2006 in Europe.[12][13][14] In 2008, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse[lower-alpha 4] released in Japan for the Wii, and has not been released overseas.[2][15] The fifth title, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water,[lower-alpha 5] was released for the Wii U in 2014 in Japan and 2015 in North America, Europe and Australia.[16][17][18]

The first two titles have received expanded re-releases. An expanded port of the original game was released for the Xbox in 2002 in Japan and 2003 in Western territories. It featured additional story elements, gameplay refinements and a new difficulty setting.[8][19][20] For Crimson Butterfly, a "Director's Cut" for the Xbox was released in 2004 in Japan and North America, and 2005 in Europe.[11][21][22] A new expanded remake for the Wii was released in Japan and Europe in 2012.[23][24]

A mobile title, Real Zero, was released in 2004 for FOMA and DoCoMo mobile devices. The game involves users taking pictures of their environments and superimposing ghost images somewhere in the frame. Seventy different ghosts were available to collect, with each new ghost triggering the sending of an email to provide clues for finding the next ghost or other messages.[25][26] The game's service was terminated in 2011.[27] A spin-off for the Nintendo 3DS, Spirit Camera,[lower-alpha 6] was released in all regions in 2012.[28][29][30] The story follows a girl named Maya, who is trapped in a haunted house controlled by a mysterious woman in black, and seeks to escape the woman's control.[29]

To commemorate the release of Crimson Butterfly, a special interactive attraction titled Zero4D opened in 2004. It featured movie scenes designed by the same team behind the CGI movies for Crimson Butterfly.[25] A manga based on the series written by Shin Kibayashi, Fatal Frame: Shadow Priestess,[lower-alpha 7] was released in both Japanese and English through DeNA's website in July 2014.[31] A Japanese live-action movie directed by Mari Asato for Kadokawa Pictures was released in cinemas in 2014. The novel it was based on, Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls by Eiji Ohtsuka, was released a few months prior to the movie.[32][33]

A Hollywood film adaptation of the first game was announced in 2003. Robert Fyvolent and Mark R. Brinker were hired as the project's writers, and John Rogers was hired as its producer. The title was being produced by DreamWorks.[34] Later that year, it was announced that Steven Spielberg was helping Rogers to polish the game's script, and that sessions to find a director and cast the movie would follow.[35] In 2014 alongside the formal announcement of Maiden of Black Water, it was confirmed that the Hollywood film was still planned. Now produced by Samuel Hadida, it is set to begin production after the completion and release of the game.[32] Christophe Gans announced in an interview that the movie will take place in Japan in an attempt to capture its Japanese haunted house setting.[36]

A battle with a hostile ghost from the original game. Aside from aesthetic variations, the gameplay has remained roughly the same throughout the series.

The gameplay has remained consistent through the series' lifetime. Each environment is filled with ghosts, with separate games having different attack behaviors for them.[37][38] While navigating these environments, the main character's only means of defense is the Camera Obscura, which can be used to damage ghosts, capturing them on film and pacifying them. When using the camera, the view switches from a third-person to a first-person perspective. The camera locks onto a ghost, with the amount of damage dealt depending on how much of a focus the Camera Obscura has on the ghost, but ghosts fade in and out of existence, making focusing more challenging. Shots of varying closeness and angles also affect how much damage the ghost takes. The most damaging is a "fatal frame", which hits a ghost weak spot. A ghost's captured spirit energy is converted into points, which can be used to buy items to upgrade the Camera Obscura and obtain more powerful film.[39][40][41]

In addition to hostile ghosts, there are passive ghosts encountered in parts of the environment: if they are not caught on film at once, they vanish from the rest of the game. Ghosts captured on film are added to a list, which reveals a ghost's past.[37] For the first three games, navigation is done using semi-fixed third-person view of environments, with characters moving at a slow pace through them. For Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and later entries, the camera perspective was altered to a third-person over-the-shoulder view and character movement was increased a little to speed up gameplay. The ability to either dodge or break free from a ghost's grip was added in Maiden of Black Water.[1][4][39][40]

The Fatal Frame / Project Zero series is set in the 1980s, before mobile phones were commonly used in Japan. Aside from a few recurring characters, each game has a self-contained story focusing on a different supernatural threat. The main unifying factor is navigating through haunted locations struck by a supernatural catastrophe, with a recurring setting being abandoned Japanese mansions.[4] Recurring characters include Dr. Kunihiko Asou, an occultist who lived in the 1800s and created objects such as the Camera Obscura;[37] and Miku Hinasaki, the protagonist of Fatal Frame and one of three protagonists in The Tormented, who also appears in Maiden of Black Water as one of the main characters' missing mother. A second recurring feature is the exclusive or frequent use of female characters in the leading role. This was explained as being due to the overall tone of the series: since traditional violence was not used, it was better to use a female character to convey this. It was also felt that women were more spiritually aware than men.[42] Another recurring concept is a pseudo-physical location bridging the physical and spiritual worlds, inspired by a tanka written by Japanese poet Taeko Kuzuhara: these were represented by the Hellish Abyss in Crimson Butterfly and the lake in Maiden of Black Water.[43]

The first chronological entry in the series, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, takes place in 1980. The story revolves around three girls who travel back to the fictional Rougetsu Island to recover memories of being kidnapped while they lived there ten years before. On the island, they must investigate the secrets behind a local ritual dance and an ancient mask related to the ritual.[4] Fatal Frame is set six years after Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, with Crimson Butterfly being set two years after that. The Tormented is set two months after the second game's events.[42] Maiden of Black Water is set at an unspecified date after the third game. Although Miku Hinasaki is 37 when Maiden of Black Water is set, which seems to be 20 years after the first Fatal Frame where she was only 17. It takes place around the fictional Mount Hikami, a site infamous for suicides and rituals associated with local bodies of water. The main protagonists are each drawn to the mountain intent on rescuing someone, confronting hostile ghosts along the way.[16][44]