Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water needs so much space

Are you one of those 32GB Wii U owners? You probably feel pretty secure in your purchase, because it’s the biggest system Nintendo sells. I mean, it’s really the only model the company moves anymore, what with the 8GB Wii U having been phased out. But let me tell you something right now – Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is going to dominate your system.

If you happen to be one of those 8GB Wii U owners, well, you absolutely need to seek out some external storage solution for this. That version of the console ends up having 3GB of space for games. Even if you own a 32GB system, which leaves you around 24GB, you might need an HDD upgrade. Fatal Frame will be gunning for half of that space.

To download the trial version of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, you need about 10GB free for the over 6.2GB game. The actual file size is 6,224MB, if you want to be exact. Once that is in place, you’re able to purchase the full game upgrade. That’s an additional 8GB download, or 8,059MB for those who want a more precise figure. To get that additional 8GB, you need another 11GB free space to start the download. The final tally, once both downloads are complete and you have a save file set up, is 14,315MB, making Fatal Frame a 14GB game before patches.

Fortunately, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water doesn’t take too long to download. With a 25MB connection, I was able to get the first part in about an hour. The second took about an hour and twenty minutes. The real surprise was when it came time to install the full game. After acquiring the additional data, it took 20 minutes for everything to set up and the trial version to upgrade.

Since Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is only available via the Nintendo eShop in North America, you might have to invest in an external hard drive for the game. The Wii U does support USB flash drives, but the nature of the system and constant writing and rewriting of data could cause them to fail. External hard drives that are 2TB or smaller work well, and ones that have their own power source are advised. (I use a Seagate 500GB HDD..) If you have a portable hard drive that doesn’t have its own power source, you’ll need a USB Y cable to connect it to your Wii U. The game is free-to-start, so it is possible to play through the first two chapters in the demo and only sacrifice 6GB of space while you decide if you’re willing to make room for the full 14GB game.

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water will be released on October 22, 2015. It will be $49.99.