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2023 Hand Held by a Ghost

Title: Hand Held by a Ghost

Folklore Type: memorate, folkloresque

Contents:

"Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse also features a unique system where the player is sometimes grabbed by a ghostly hand when reaching for an item. This was actually based on a spiritual experience I had during the production of a previous game, Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. Late one night, I was home asleep when I felt someone grab my hand. At first, I thought it was an illusion since I was still in a sleep-like haze, but the cold hand kept hold, slowly increasing strength. “It hurts! It hurts!”, I screamed, and I finally felt the cold hand pull away before I saw it disappear into a wall. Since I was sleeping against the wall, there was no way anyone could’ve been there. There was a spirit behind the wall!

And it’s not the first time I encountered spirits inside this wall. It’s the same wall that I’ve heard spirits whisper from in the middle of the night. I remember when working on Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, I heard a woman’s voice say: “Let’s go swimming.” It shocked me, because that was going to be the ending scene of the game. How did she know!?

I wanted to include this experience in The Tormented, where the main character, Rei, wakes up and has her hand grabbed by a spirit, but it was just so difficult to visualize the sensation of having one’s hand held by a ghost, so we waited and introduced it as part of new system in the next game, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse."

Context:

In this blog excerpt, Shibata describes a paranormal experience he had of being grabbed by a spirit, which is later incorporated into Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse as a game mechanic. While picking up objects in game, if the player is grabbed by a disembodied hand, then the controller they are using vibrates, giving them the sensation of a physical encounter.

Shibata also discusses his desire to include this encounter in Fatal Frame: The Tormented, but didn't feel he could capture that sensation in a visual way. There is one cut scene in the game where one of the protagonists wakes up to find their hand being held by a ghost, but there is no vibration translated through the controller to the player.

This blog post is written for the release of Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse on the Xbox. The original release of this game in 2008 was exclusive to the Nintendo Wii platform. The game was not officially released in the West until March 2023 following a remaster and subtitled localization.

Source Information

Original Source Citation: Shibata, Makoto. "The Real-Life Hauntings that Inspired Fata Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse." Xbox Wire. March 9, 2023. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/03/09/fatal-frame-mask-lunar-eclipse-ghost-stories-real-life/.
Source Type: blog
Source URL: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/03/09/fatal-frame-mask-lunar-eclipse-ghost-stories-real-life/
Date Published: 2023-03-09
Date Collected: 2023-07-28
Associated File Name: Shibata-2023-The Real-Life Hauntings that Inspired Fatal Frame.pdf
  1. Bibliography-Fatal Frame Collection
  2. 2023-Actually_Inspired_by_Spirits
  3. 2023-Let_the_Spirits_Emerge
  4. 2023-Man_in_the_Moonlight
  5. 2023-Repurposed_From_Bad_Dreams
  6. 2023-She_Was_Singing_Them
  7. 2023-You_Are_Being_Noisy