Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake would not open with a bounce scare; it opens in a trance. As Mio, you watch helplessly as a crimson butterfly lures your twin sister, Mayu, into a fog-covered forest. There, the Misplaced Village swallows her complete. For over twenty-two years, this scene has haunted followers, myself included. Seeing the village emerge from the mist, fashionable lighting draping each rooftop and tree department in dense volumetric fog, I knew instantly: this is not a low-budget remaster. The dread in Fatal Frame 2 stems not solely from the individually named wraiths stalking you thru its haunted Japanese village – a place trapped in a competition of demise – but additionally from the approach Mayu grips your hand, dragging you towards risks you are unprepared for. After roughly 4 hours with the first 4 chapters on PC, this remake already has its hooks in me — not solely is it a trustworthy but modernized tackle what many take into account the scariest recreation ever, its added visible constancy makes the core mechanic of trying straight at what’s making an attempt to kill you that a lot tougher to endure.
Fatal Frame 2’s central mechanic stays one in all the cleverest in survival horror. Your main weapon is the Camera Obscura — a modified digital camera that damages wraiths by photographing them. That is it. No shotguns, no grenades stashed in a locker. You level a digital camera at one thing terrifying, and you are taking its image. The sequence has been doing this since 2001, and it is nonetheless not like the rest in the style.
The Camera Obscura makes use of focal factors: crosshairs that determine a wraith’s weak spots. Aligning extra of those factors once you take a photograph will increase the harm dealt. You’ll be able to improve these focal factors with prayer beads discovered all through the atmosphere, making every shot extra deadly and rewarding exploration in traditional survival horror fashion. However your digital camera may also ship particular pictures that require willpower, and the impact varies relying on the outfitted filter. Whereas auto-focus helps you lock onto targets, handbook focus rewards precision with extra critical harm. And, regardless of Fatal Frame 2’s penalties for proximity, conserving the viewfinder pulled again and standing dangerously near a spirit was typically the higher technique for dealing extra harm and taking management of a battle.
Nevertheless, willpower is a restricted and worthwhile useful resource. If you happen to get too shut, a wraith will drain your willpower, leaving you weak to a leering assault that flashes your display screen and momentarily steals management, or permits the wraith to strike you extra simply than it might at vary.
Movie sorts function your ammunition and create their very own layer of useful resource rigidity. The fundamental Kind-07 movie is infinite however reloads slowly and hits weakly, whereas stronger movie like the Kind-61 offers considerably extra harm however caps at eight pictures and have to be scavenged, as you possibly can’t purchase extra once you run out. Interchangeable filters add additional complexity: the Normal Filter stuns enemies, the Paraceptual Filter blinds them at vary and might ultimately be upgraded to see via partitions, and the Publicity Filter can unlock secret objects and areas by reconstructing sure scenes with the Phantom Exposé mode. Every filter has its personal improve path masking vary, reload pace, and particular shot length, and since particular pictures value willpower, you are additionally incentivized to take a position your restricted prayer beads into upgrading willpower restoration at the expense of uncooked harm. There’s a lot of technique right here for gamers who need to dig into Fatal Frame 2’s intricate system.
This wonderful fight loop revolves round timing. You enter digital camera mode by holding the left set off, body the wraith with the proper thumbstick, and slam the proper set off to activate the shutter. However your pictures will sometimes be weaker except you look forward to it to telegraph an assault — you may hear the wraith moaning whereas the display screen flashes crimson — and then you definitely hit the shutter for a Fatal Frame shot, which staggers the spirit and offers huge harm. Nail one whereas a wraith is already weak and also you set off Fatal Time, a window for rapid-fire images that robotically burns via your fundamental Kind-07 movie. The entire system punishes impatience and rewards the nerve to face nonetheless whereas one thing horrible lunges at you, however it’s gradual. Intentionally so. Movie reload occasions are lengthy, enemies take a whereas to go down, and the rhythm of capturing, exiting digital camera mode, backpedaling, and re-entering is methodical by design — kinda like jousting, however with a digital camera as a substitute of a lance. When the environment is doing its job, which it often is, the deliberateness feels meditative. Whether or not it stays that approach throughout a full marketing campaign is one in all the larger questions this preview cannot but reply.
By way of the Viewfinder
Three problem modes can be found: Story, Regular, and Exhausting (Battle). Every is meaningfully tuned, with tougher settings growing wraith harm whereas rewarding extra Picture Factors for expert pictures. These factors feed into an merchandise store the place you should buy therapeutic objects and equippable stat-boosting charms, creating a risk-reward scale that shifts slightly than merely punishing the participant. I performed most of the preview on Regular earlier than switching to Story after Chapter Three. Even in Story, enemies hit onerous sufficient to take care of rigidity — that means these problem modes protect the horror slightly than trivialize it.
Talking of customizing the expertise, I previewed Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake on a machine outfitted with a Ryzen 3900X, RTX 4070 Ti, and 32GB of RAM at 3440x1440p ultrawide with max settings. In typical PC gamer trend, my first journey was the choices menu itself, which deserves point out for its satisfying granularity. You’ll be able to alter vibration depth individually for harm suggestions, merchandise looking, and even how onerous Mio’s coronary heart races throughout cutscenes. You’ll be able to fine-tune digital camera habits right down to impediment avoidance and rotation inertia; customise your graphical settings with precision; and even change the Camera Obscura’s viewfinder fashion between a traditional and fashionable look. If you happen to can think about a setting, this remake in all probability has it. It additionally ships with each English and Japanese audio, which is a welcome contact for a sequence with such deep roots in Japanese horror.
PC gamers anticipating an unlocked body price ought to be aware that it’s capped at 60fps. Contemplating the consideration to element in areas like viewfinder kinds and vibration settings, Fatal Frame 2’s lack of broader accessibility options stands out. It already affords a deep UI and subtitle scaling, customizable textual content colours, named character labels, and textual content backgrounds — a stable basis. Nevertheless, the absence of display screen studying or colorblind modes is especially putting for a recreation constructed round photographing ghosts, the place visible suggestions like crosshair lock-ons, display screen flashes, and coloration inversions drive the core loop. Display reader help for the in depth menus, merchandise descriptions, and collectible paperwork appears a pure extension of the textual content customization already in place. Video games like The Final of Us Half 2 have proven that colorblind accessibility will be addressed via audiovisual indicators that do not depend on coloration alone, an method that might work right here with out undermining the environment.
Spirited Away
Fatal Frame 2’s engrossing story facilities on twin sisters Mio and Mayu, who stumble into Minakami Village — a place that vanished from a mountainside on the night time of a failed ritual. The village was constructed over a gate to the underworld known as the Hellish Abyss, and its residents carried out a grotesque twin sacrifice to maintain it sealed. When the ritual failed, the village was consumed by mist, and now it is filled with stressed spirits who need to reenact the complete factor utilizing you.
The story setup hooked me instantly. Each room feels handcrafted to maximise unease — objects clattering off cabinets in adjoining hallways, rain pattering towards rooftops whereas ghosts stalk corridors, the distant wail of a wraith telling you precisely the place it’s and precisely why you should not be there. The sound design is relentless. The whole lot is exactly blended, which makes the bounce scares land tougher as a result of the baseline environment is already ratcheted tight. Attain out to choose up an merchandise, and a wraith might seize your hand as a substitute, draining your willpower till you frantically mash the A button to shake it off. It is a small contact, however it means even looting feels harmful.
Every ghost has a title and backstory you possibly can piece collectively via collectible paperwork and a spirit listing that catalogs each encounter: the drowned lady on the bridge, the lady sealed in a field, the spirit in the Osaka home nonetheless trying to find her misplaced boyfriend Masumi. It goes deep into the lore as effectively: by digging into the richly detailed village for scraps of misplaced journals and different objects left behind, I uncovered that Masumi was a folklorist’s assistant who vanished whereas surveying a forest slated for a dam, just for his girlfriend Miyako to comply with him into the mist and meet the identical destiny.
She’s the spirit I fought in the Osaka home, and I beloved taking part in via a whole 30-minute aspect quest devoted to demystifying her background. All through the marketing campaign, you {photograph} the former residents’ spectral remnants and slowly construct a image of the tragedy that consumed Minakami Village, giving Fatal Frame 2 a degree of world-building that rewards curiosity with out requiring it and offers each encounter a layer of melancholy beneath the worry.
The preview construct additionally featured the Kusabi, a huge, unkillable entity that patrols sure areas. When it exhibits up, you possibly can’t battle it; you disguise. It drains your willpower on contact, forces your display screen into black and white, and disables the Camera Obscura totally. One prolonged sequence in the Kurosawa mansion strips you of your flashlight whereas the Kusabi hunts you thru darkish hallways, and it is the handiest horror set piece in the preview. It is the form of sequence that makes you notice how a lot the Camera Obscura usually features as a safety blanket.
What in the Junji Ito?
Outdoors of fight, Fatal Frame 2 performs like a traditional Resident Evil recreation, and that is a particular comparability. Gamers navigate interconnected rooms, discover keys, resolve puzzles to unlock new areas, and sometimes uncover that beforehand protected rooms now include threats. Save factors will be blocked by enemies. The construction creates a loop of dread, aid, and recent dread that survival horror followers will instantly acknowledge.
(*2*)
Puzzles are easy — one has you arranging dolls on a temple altar based mostly on clues from a {photograph} — however they’re woven into the environmental storytelling in ways in which preserve them from feeling like arbitrary roadblocks. Hidden collectibles embrace pairs of dual dolls that unlock objects at the Picture Level alternate store when photographed collectively. The beforehand talked about Phantom Exposé system helps you to recreate outdated images discovered in the atmosphere to disclose hidden objects. You match the framing of an outdated photograph to uncover one thing that had vanished, giving real cause to revisit earlier areas with recent eyes and a charged filter.
Moreover, your flashlight helps spot objects however makes it simpler for enemies to detect you, including a stealth aspect that feeds straight into the rigidity. Some areas are higher to sneak via when you can’t afford to battle a wraith head-on, and operating away from a battle to the nearest save level is often an choice. It’s nice that you simply heal robotically at save factors, and whereas holding Mayu’s hand additionally regenerates well being, she was separated from Mio for 2 full chapters throughout the preview, leaving me reliant on uncommon therapeutic objects and cautious play. Equippable charms present small stat boosts — the Moonstone extends your dodge window, whereas Mayu’s Appeal will increase well being restoration when holding arms. They’re small construct selections that add texture with out overcomplicating issues.
Lastly, Fatal Frame 2 Remake’s controls really feel intentionally stiff — you dodge on A, crouch on B, and open your stock on X. There’s additionally some inertia when getting into and exiting the Camera Obscura’s viewfinder with the left set off. This structure is sensible after a whereas, however throughout the first two chapters, I typically fumbled for the proper enter with a wraith bearing down on me. Relying in your tolerance, that is both a management subject or a horror characteristic.
Level and Shoot
It took roughly 4 hours to clear the first 4 chapters, partly as a consequence of fight problem and partly as a result of the world rewards exploration, with loads of nooks and crannies to dip into whereas scavenging for vital objects and uncovering the elaborate depth of Minakami Village itself. The graphics and UI translate effectively to ultrawide, and followers will discover the rebuilt traditional scenes wealthy with element. However some questions do stay about how effectively the remainder of the marketing campaign fares. The 60fps cap is an annoying albeit forgivable ceiling; the deliberate fight pacing might develop tiresome over a full marketing campaign. It’s additionally too early to inform how faithfully the remake handles the unique’s a number of endings, though Fatal Frame 2’s historical past and the deft dealing with of its marketing campaign to this point suggests better narrative complexity forward.
The Camera Obscura system stays distinctive in survival horror, the environment is thick sufficient to really feel bodily, and the storytelling rewards the gradual, cautious consideration this style calls for. If you happen to beloved the unique, that is shaping as much as be a worthy reintroduction. If you happen to’ve by no means performed Fatal Frame, that is the place to start out — the entries are largely standalone, and this one was already thought of the finest again in 2003. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake launches for PC, PS5, Swap 2, and Xbox Collection on March 12, 2026.