PROJECT ZEROTM MAIDEN OF BLACK WATER

Horror games have come a long way in the past two decades, but in their early years, the fear factor was often side by side if not secondary to empowering players with firepower to take down physical and visible threats. Resident Evil went as far as diverting down an action-oriented path, even though it has more recently attempted to course-correct. By comparison, Project Zero was a breath of fresh air of the chilly kind when it arrived in 2001.

You weren’t a trained soldier nor were you armed with a gun, not that bullets would be of any use against the supernatural. More importantly, while Japanese developers like Capcom and Konami were influenced by zombie and monster movies from Hollywood and American culture for the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series respectively, Tecmo (since merging with Dynasty Warriors developer Koei to become Koei Tecmo) chose to take inspiration from Japanese culture, which coincided with the rising international popularity of J-horror cult classics like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge (and their Hollywood remakes), although the reason for the game’s creation was more inspired by writer and director Makoto Shibata’s own personal experiences with the paranormal.

But while you typically played a vulnerable Japanese school girl, this didn’t mean running away and hiding – and how Tecmo’s North American team came up with its North American title – came from the Camera Obscura, a special antique camera that is your only means to survive against vengeful spirits by capturing them with its light and shutter, its power reserved for the ghosts that are closest in shot, just to make the experience all that more nerve-wracking.