Prerelease:Haunting Ground

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Haunting Ground.

To do: There are a couple more trailers floating around (some of which were only available on the now-defunct Japanese website) that may contain more differences. Given that the site operated with now-deleted .swf content, some of this info may be lost. The vastly different US version of the Haunting Ground website appears to have also finally been taken down sometime between late 2020 and 2023, but there is footage of some of its .swf content, including gameplay previews and a trailer that may have been made just for the website (most of the content shown on the US website is largely identical to the final game, however). Verify when the Japanese website was actually put up, in order to integrate it into the timeline better - only the basics have been added for now.

September 2004

Tokyo Game Show

A trailer distributed by Capcom on a special DVD.

• Several areas contain different camera angles compared to the final game:
  • The dining room, the area where Fiona first meets Debilitas, and the EMETH Golem room do not use their static camera angles from the final game, instead closely following behind Fiona and moving with her.
  • At 1:46, the camera can be seen following Hewie attacking Debilitas. In the final game, the camera will only follow a stalker if Fiona is hiding.
• Debilitas can briefly be seen in the hall that is opened by the key Fiona receives after his boss battle at 0:58. In the final game, only Daniella and Fiona can enter this area for a brief scripted chase, and after Fiona has left this area she is unable to return to it or the beginning area of the castle for the rest of the game. It's possible that at some point the castle was still explorable later in the game, much like how certain other areas can be backtracked to.
• The cutscene where Hewie finds Fiona locked in a cell still has Fiona in her "Fiona A" outfit, rather than swapping it out for the "Under the Scalpel" outfit that the final game puts her in during this cutscene. However, in the final game the "Fiona A" outfit can be kept on if the cutscene is loaded via the bonus room's in-game cutscene viewer with it equipped (this is the only way to do it, as "Fiona A" will always be taken from the player before this cutscene and swapped with Fiona B for the rest of the game after).
• A couple moments in the trailer use different takes of dialogue, such as Fiona asking Hewie to shake hands. It is unknown whether this is the same voice actor as the final game.
• Hewie uses completely different, more realistic barking sounds.
• There is a brief moment where Fiona looks at the key needed to leave Debilitas' area. Something to note is that the chandelier used to end the boss if the player chooses to spare Debilitas is visible in the background, meaning that if this portion is meant to be a cutscene, it may have played after defeating him. However, in the final game the key must be grabbed first to begin the boss battle, which suggests that things may have played out differently at this point in development.

Promotional Websites

Japanese Website

The Japanese website showcases a few video clips and screenshots from what appears to be an earlier build. However, both the US and JP websites were largely SWF-filled sites, and much of the content was not archived when they were both shut down sometime after 2020.

To do: An image of this in action is present on the unofficial Clock Tower wiki on Daniella's page.

• A screenshot was present on the JP website where Fiona appears to be engaged in combat with Daniella in the catacombs - in the final game, the catacombs is one of the few locations in the game that stalkers will never chase Fiona into, even if they see her enter that area. It's possible that the location was originally also traversable by stalkers in earlier versions and was potentially changed so that stalkers did not interfere with the many unique golem-related puzzles present in the area.