The mystery behind Nintendo’s new 18-rated game has been revealed and it’s out next month, with no sign of Bloober Team’s involvement.
It’s still surprising just how good June’s Nintendo Direct was, with multiple brand new games that no one had any idea about, but it turns there’s one more title that Nintendo could’ve mentioned, in the form of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club.
The 18-rated game was first teased last week, with some very creepy imagery of a man with a paper bag on his head, with a crudely drawn smiley face on it.
At the time, there was no indication of what it was but recent rumours have suggested it’s part of the Famicom Detective Club series and that’s now been confirmed by Nintendo.
The original two Famicom Detective Club games on the NES (Famicom is the Japanese name for Nintendo’s first console) were originally only available in Japan but full-blown remakes were released worldwide in 2021.
The first two games are essentially visual novels, with the remakes featuring only very limited animation and mostly static images. They were sticking purposefully close to the originals though, with no English voiceovers, so it remains to be seen whether the new game will have a more modern style.
The initial teaser images were pre-rendered (or perhaps live action, it’s hard to tell) but everything so far seems to imply that the game will still feature the same hand drawn artwork as before.
2021’s remakes were rated 16 in the UK but Emio already has an 18 rating, implying an even more violent, and perhaps bloody, game than before.
The basis of the plot seems to revolve around a serial killer that seeks out crying young girls and kills them, placing a paper bag over their head with a smiling face drawn on it.
The Australian age rating information has previously stated that the game features, ‘strong themes, violence, and suicide references’, as well as ‘violence, cruelty, domestic abuse, and suicide themes.’ Which is heavy stuff for a Nintendo-made game.
Producer Yoshio Sakamoto doesn’t offer any real details, in the video above, but he does mention that he sees the game as the ‘culmination’ of the series and that many will find the ending ‘divisive’, which sounds ominous.
Early rumours had suggested that Polish studio Bloober Team, who are currently working on the remake of Silent Hill 2, might be involved but now that it’s been fully revealed there’s no indication that that’s the case.
That will be a relief for many, although it only adds to the confusion of what they were talking about when they said they were working on a ‘Nintendo exclusive’ title codenamed Project M.
The release date of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is set for August 29, 2024. There’s no word on how much it will cost but it will be getting both a physical and digital release.
Although it seems fair to assume this is Nintendo’s final game announcement of the year, you never know with them, especially as it’s still unclear when they will unveil their new console and when it might be released.
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