| Haunting Ground | |
|---|---|
 North American box art | |
| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Director(s) | Kazuhiro Tsuchiya |
| Producer(s) | Koji Nakajima |
| Designer(s) | Yukio Ando |
| Programmer(s) | Jun Takahashi |
| Writer(s) |
|
| Composer(s) |
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| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Survival horror |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Haunting Ground[a] is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation 2 in 2005. The story follows Fiona Belli, a young woman who wakes up in the dungeon of a castle after being involved in a car accident. She quickly befriends a White Shepherd, Hewie, and begins to explore the castle with his aid to seek a means of escape and unravel the mysteries of it and its inhabitants. The game shares many similarities with Capcom's earlier survival horror title Clock Tower 3, and has been described as a spiritual successor to the Clock Tower series.
The player controls Fiona as she explores the environment, evades and hides from enemy pursuers, and occasionally fights against the castle's inhabitants. Sometimes Fiona will panic when in danger, in which case she begins to run on her own and the player loses some control. Hewie is a central part to the gameplay, and accompanies Fiona throughout the game. He can be given orders to explore the environment, attack enemies, and otherwise aid in Fiona's survival. Capcom added the dog mechanic during development thinking retailers and players alike would not enjoy a survival horror title with a lone female protagonist.
Haunting Ground was released April 2005 and received mixed reviews. The graphics and presentation were praised, but critics found the gameplay somewhat repetitive, predictable, and derivative of previous horror titles. The game's voyeuristic nature and the sexual objectification of Fiona were highlighted by critics as some of the game's best elements. They felt that by exposing Fiona as a vulnerable object of desire, the game makes her and therefore the player feel more fragile and endangered, building a more disturbing atmosphere.
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