The game has just been announced/reconfirmed by Tecmo at their winter press conference. (January 3oth, 2008)

People involved:
Kikuchi-san & Shibata-san will be returning as director and producer.
Suda 51 will also be involved as will Grasshopper Manufacturer. He is in charge of writing (or has already written) the story.
According to Games(tm) Magazine, Suda 51 has said that Masafumi Takada will be writing all the music. It is unsure if this means that the image song will be written by Amano Tsukiko or not. (Takada wrote Resident Evil Chronicles/No More Heroes Soundtracks.
Nintendo will oversee sales, distribution, and promotion of the game around the world.

About the game itself:
The game's name is Rei: Tsukihami no Kamen aka zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
It will be released to the Wii console.
Tecmo is hoping for a summer 2008 release date.
The image colour of the game is yellow.
The main keywords are memory, moon, and mask.
The location appears to be an abandoned western house.
Something concerning retrieving lost memories.

A short 2 minute trailer was also shown involving the girl in released promo shots, however her name (nor the name of the woman in the kimono...presumeably a ghost) and the storyline of the game have yet to be revealed.




Previous history:
At the 2007 Tokyo Game Show Tecmo announced through 1up.com that the fourth Fatal Frame game is in the works. Currently, the game is to be released to the Wii console and is being made in conjunction with the help of Grasshopper Manufacturer. This information is accurate. (I've known since 2006, but I had to be silent on the issue until it was made public.)

If fans were listening closely, they know how much Kikuchi-san likes to drop hints about this series in interviews. He's been 'hinting' at the prospect of designing Fatal Frame for the Wii for a while. In an interview for Tokobot via Gameinformer, Kikuchi-san mentioned the Project Zero team's interest in a Fatal Frame Wii game. He also mentioned the series again during a Super swing Golf Interview (although at this time I cannot locate the exact interview).

While pre-development of the game has already been going on, the Project Zero team is reportedly teaming up with Suda51 and his people at Grasshopper Manufacture to release the final product. This won't be until after the studio finishes up with their No More Heroes game (released via our Fatal Frame II European distributor Ubisoft) also for the Nintendo Wii. (For fans concerned about Grasshopper Manufacture's jump into survival horror...might I point out that their game Michigan (PS2 game released in Japan and Europe) which interestingly enough also took place mostly through the viewfinder of a camera.

So yes, Fatal Frame 4 for the Wii. There is currently no further information on IF there will be a port to the Xbox360 or PS3 consoles.

Related Articles: (More to be added shortly, check main page for links!)
Tecmo planning next fatal frame for Wii - 1up.com
Tecmo Talks: Rygar Battle of Argus on Wii - Cubedł.com
Tokobot Interview and Hands-On Impressions - GameInformer

Mio is the protagonist of Fatal Frame 4
This rumor started with an infamous fake famitsu article. It started as an april fool's prank, but got way out of hand. (Although, if you can read Japanese, you can clearly tell the article is fake.) There has been NO announcement concerning ANY characters (returning or otherwise) in Fatal Frame 4. It can also be argued that if the first ending of FF3 is the 'canon' ending, then it would be nearly impossible for Mio to be a main character.

Other 'rumors' listed in conjunction with this rumor:
- Fatal Frame 4 will be set after 2 years The Tormented
- The main character will be Mio Amakura (she'll be 17 y/o in FF4): the game will start in the High School attended by Mio at Tokyo, but the main adventure will be in a forest at the south of Kyoto
- The environment will be totally free of exploration, there will be a realistic physics for the water, the objects and the fire
- The graphic engine allows a lot of simultaneous special effects
- Ghosts will be more hard to defeat
- To defeat ghosts, Mio will use Camera Obscura, but she'll need some amulets to survive against strong ghosts
- Exclusive for Playstation 3, at the E3 2006 (mid-may) the first trailer, FF4 will be sold in Japan in the August 2007
- The new look of Mio will be showned at the E3 2006: these are images from Fatal Frame 2, except the image in the low-right, that is an in-game screenshot of the forest of FF4
- Makoto Shibata, the producer of the game, is very fulfilled about the new home-console of Sony: "With the Playstation 3, I can finally create a game without thinking about technical limitations"
- The game will also use the Eyetoy if available
- The temporary title of the game is "The Legacy"

The Truth:
This is a manipulated scan from a scan previously released famitsu article reporting Fatal Frame III for the first time. A 'DEAD' giveaway is the title's name: Zero: A Latest Work (what FF3 was originally called in Japan before it was named Zero: Shisei no Koe) and the kanji by Mio says 'Rei Kurosawa' not 'Mio Amakura'.
For comparison:
Fake Image here | Original Article here

The protagonist of Fatal Frame 4 will be called Yoru Tachibana
This 'rumor' has been released on Gaming Issues and Game Grep however, just like with the case of the Mio rumor, there hasn't been any official information on the characters in the game, but let's look at this a bit more closely.

The initial start of this 'story' (around a week after FF4 was announced) is that there were three scans total (two of which are seen on the websites linked) and a third (which I can no longer access...I'm pretty sure I saved the scan, so I'll get back to you guys on that.) The claim (made at gamefaqs.com forums) by YukkiChan was that she found these images on google.co.jp. (Myself and at least one other BCL admin have been 'looking' for the original sources of these images..but have _NEVER_ come across them...and YukkiChan never got back to me on the specific page she 'found' these on.)

So let's breakdown the images. 1st image. Simple enough. We have the rumored heroine, Yoru Tachibana. The kanji is correct (using the symbol for 'night' in her name), but the orange outline around the kanji seems hoockey and out of place. The character style looks a bit 'off' (I keep thinking 'dating sim or mystery game when I look at this)...but then again, GHM's style is different from Tecmo's style.

2nd image. This is where the scans get 'fishy'. We see two images of Yoru, again, profile pictures only...and a common reused image of chitose. (from her official wallpaper)...but wait. Her name's wrong! The kanji above her name is not 'Tachibana Chitose' . It reads 'Tachibana Itsuki'. Oops!

Third image (which I cannot locate at the moment) was more of Chitose, Yoru (and I think Mio?) The problem? Well, there's more kanji with the image...but it's too low of a resolution to read. I also _SWEAR_ I have seen the text used in that image before from one of my FF books...which makes it extremely fishy. When I asked about the scan's problems...I never received a response back.

The Truth:
These scans are COMPLETE FAKES!

The following are rumors that cannot be confirmed one way or another, so should be taken with an absolute grain of salt.

Fatal Frame 4 on the PS3?

- As many many sites are reporting (July 11th, 2006), a rumoured PS3 list of games to be shown/and announce at TGS (Tokyo Game Show) has leaked. Among many games on this list is Fatal Frame 4!

- 1up.com in their Playstation 3: Everything we know article (March 1st, 2006) lists Fatal Frame 4 among the games coming out for the PS3, they say the following:

"Producer Keisuke Kikuchi has said in an interview that a Fatal Frame title for next-gen consoles is already in planning stages. Survival Horror fans will be delighted at the notion of snapping photos of ghosts in glorious high-definition."

- Liksang's article on upcoming PS3 games (January 11th, 2006), lists both a Fatal Frame 4 AND a regular Fatal Frame game for the PS3.

- On July 28th 2005, The-MagicBox.com published this information concerning a fourth game. (There was no source credit, so we don't know if this came directly from Kikuchi-san or another source)

"Tecmo producer Keisuke Kikuchi revealed that the company is working on the 4th installment of Fatal Frame for the next generation consoles (PS3 and Xbox 360)."

- PGM magazine released a PS3 game list in its September 2005 issue. Under Tecmo Inc's category is a listing for a single game: Fatal Frame 4.

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BCL's affiliate, Fourhman.com has his own opinions/viewpoints on Fatal Frame 4 coming to the Wii, check out his blog when you get a chance! It's a fascinating read.

Please also check the news on the front page for the latest Fatal Frame 4 News! This section will be updated and expanded as information is released.