Development
The game was developed with the help of Grasshopper Manufacture, with Nintendo also playing a role in the game's development. Directing was shared between Shibata Makoto, who has previously been involved in the direction of the Fatal Frame series and Goichi Suda, commonly known as Suda 51, from Grasshopper Manufacture. Although the game appears to be a joint effort between Tecmo, Grasshopper and Nintendo, the latter published the game and this is the final Fatal Frame game to be developed by the former before their disbandment.
Initially the project was delayed, apparently for the release of Grasshopper's No More Heroes, which was subsequently released toward the end of 2007. Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen was eventually released in Japan on July 31, 2008.
Official Nintendo Magazine had announced that Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen was going to be released in Europe in February 2009. Nintendo later released a statement saying that this was false, and that although a May 2009 release for the game was initially envisaged, all localization and release efforts have been canceled for Europe.
Nintendo decided not to publish the game in North America or Europe. However, a team of developers released an unofficial patch to allow it to be played on U.S. and European Wiis with English text and subtitles. The fan translation was developed to make use of the Wii's SD slot, allowing only the use of original copies of Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen. The patch was released January 17, 2010.
Fatal Frame IV was never released anywhere other than in Japan, and this sparked an outroar from particularly American fans. On 14 July 2012, a Facebook campaign started called '100,000 for Project Zero 4 to be released worldwide'.
The common belief is that due to game-breaking bugs in the game's code that Tecmo refused to finance the fix for in the localisation, the American and Europe releases were cancelled
Read more about this topic: Zero: Tsukihami No Kamen
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