Fatal Frame

Fatal Frame (released in Japan as Zero and in Europe as Project Zero) was launched by Tecmo for the PlayStation 2 in 2002 as a survival horror where the player has no weapons, only the Camera Obscura, which weakens and ultimately banishes ghosts by photographing them. The first game's story took place in the abandoned Japanese Himuro mansion, tied to a bloody ritual, and drew on local folklore and ghost legends, setting it clearly apart from the Western survival horrors of the time built around guns and zombies.

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (2003) took players to a remote village bound by a sacrificial ritual through twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura, deepening both the atmosphere and the storytelling; many fans still consider it the series' peak for its tight narrative and oppressive sense of dread. Fatal Frame III: The Tormented (2005) linked dreams, photographs and the heroine's own house into a single cursed space, closing out the trilogy Tecmo built for the PlayStation 2.

After years in which further entries appeared only in Japan on Wii, the series returned in 2014-2015 with Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water for Wii U, which used the GamePad as the Camera Obscura and carried forward the theme of a lakeside mountain tied to drowned souls. Despite a limited commercial reach and a smaller audience, the series kept its reputation as one of the most distinctive horror franchises, one built on helplessness, quiet tension and photography as the only available defense against an unseen threat.