This has been bugging me for quite some time and the silence is growing larger by the day. While it never made much noise when compared to Resident Evil or Silent Hill, Fatal Frame has quietly been one of the most reverred survival horror franchises ever. From the insanely difficult debut to the beautifully tragic Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, as well as the last and very under rated Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented, the series has continued to provide great characters, story, gameplay, and most importantly suspense and atmosphere. While the franchise has it fair share of jump out at you moments, the subtlety is what makes it different from the rest. And with Fatal Frame 4 already out in Japan, the lack of information on a US or EU release is surprising.

Fatal Frame has some unique things going for it. Most notably the series shift over to the Wii. While originally it was met with mixed opinions the shift has apparently paid off as the games revamped controls have vrought the series into a modern era. Gona are the classic tank controls and prerendered backgrounds. Now there is an open environment, the camera is free to rotate at will and the wii-mote is used as a flashlight. The scepticism was always on how the picture taking would work and from what I have seen and heard, reviews are favorable all around. While adjusting to is needed, it is nothing game breaking in any way.

Another interesting thing is the involvement of Goichi Suda, better known as Suda 51. Suda was brought on board as a producer and actually helped produce the game and create the story. It is well documented that the original trilogy was the storyline of the three families featured in the games. All of that was brought to a close with Fatal Frame 3. Therefore a brand new scenario had to be created.

Perhaps the most troubling thing in all of this however is the turmoil of Tecmo as a whole. Tecmo has always been considered a company based solely on Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. Basically a company driven solely by Team Ninja. As a result Fatal Frame has always been overlooked. With the much reported fallout between Tecmo and the then head of Team Ninja Itagaki, many other companies have attempted to buy Tecmo, most notably Square-Enix. Throughout everything the company has said the have plans to release the game outside of Japan but no information has been unveiled since the games release in Japan a few months back.

Until we find out one way or another a great site for the most up to date news regarding anything Fatal Frame is www.cameraslens.com. The longer and longer we go without any information, the more tempted I am to try out a region breaker and just import the game. Yet at the same time, it wouldn't be the same as the story is the heart of everything that is Fatal Frame. Anyone who is a fan of the series or the genre itself should really hope for the best news possible as Fatal Frame is one of the premiere games in the survival horror genre.