True Japanese horror games avoid "jump scares and graphic violence," Fatal Frame 2 directors say, because they respect that "frightening things can be beautiful"

I’ve been spending a lot of time fixating on little things in my Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly remake demo. When I’m done unlocking cursed doors as protagonist Mio, feeling sick as I meet an abandoned doll’s shark-eye stare, or tripping around wraiths in my ballet flats, I quietly observe the dusty prettiness of the Japanese countryside developer Koei Tecmo built for its remake, due March 12. It’s impossible to not notice the new, starlight glimmer of the red butterfly that guides me to my next task, the fragile lace on my camisole, and other evidence of directors Makoto Shibata and Hidehiko Nakajima’s commitment to making a horror game from 2003 feel vulnerable and look beautiful.

Fraying loveliness feels nearly as critical to Fatal Frame 2 existence as the magic Camera Obscura in Mio’s hands, which allows me to wound ghosts I encounter each time I snap a moody film photo. My twin sister Mayu has gone missing in the possessed Minakami Village, and in the first four chapters of the demo, it’s my job to retrieve her and hold her hand without letting the stifling atmosphere of the undead really choke me out. Though, as Shibata and Nakajima say in a joint interview with GamesRadar+, this atmosphere is “the essence of Japanese horror.”

A real Japanese horror game is good at “restraining jump scares and graphic violence,” say the Fatal Frame 2 directors, “instead stimulating the player’s imagination.” Think of the genre’s history, from 1995’s Clock Tower and how it helped introduce the sinister stalker-type enemy, to the recent Silent Hill f and its foreboding mountains – Japanese is a candle melting rather than a house fire.