The mystery behind Nintendo’s new 18-rated game has been solved and the game is due out next month, but there’s no indication yet that Bloober Team is involved.
It’s still surprising how good the June Nintendo Direct was, with multiple brand new games that no one knew about. But it turns out there’s one more title that Nintendo could have mentioned, and that’s Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club.
The 18-rated game was first announced last week with some very creepy footage of a man wearing a paper bag on his head with a crudely drawn smiley face on it.
At the time there was no information on what it was, but recent rumors suggest it is part of the Famicom Detective Club series and this has now been confirmed by Nintendo.
The two original Famicom Detective Club games for the NES (Famicom is the Japanese name for Nintendo’s first console) were originally only available in Japan, but full remakes were released worldwide in 2021.
The first two games are essentially visual novels, with the remakes featuring very limited animation and mostly static images. However, they purposefully stayed close to the originals, with no English voiceovers, so it remains to be seen whether the new game will have a more modern style.
The first teaser images were pre-rendered (or maybe live-action, it’s hard to say), but everything so far seems to indicate that the game will still feature the same hand-crafted illustrations as before.
The 2021 remakes were rated 16 in the UK, but Emio already has an 18 rating, meaning the game is even more violent and perhaps bloodier than before.
The plot revolves around a serial killer who hunts down crying young girls and murders them, putting a paper bag over their heads with a smiley face on it.
The Australian age rating information previously stated that the game contains “strong themes, violence and references to suicide” as well as “themes relating to violence, cruelty, domestic abuse and suicide”. That’s heavy material for a game made by Nintendo.
Producer Yoshio Sakamoto doesn’t give any real details in the video above, but he does say that he sees the game as the “pinnacle” of the series and that many will find the ending “divisive,” which sounds ominous.
Previous rumors suggested that Polish studio Bloober Team, currently working on the Silent Hill 2 remake, would be involved. However, now that it is fully known, there is no indication that this is actually the case.
That will come as a relief to many, although it only adds to the confusion over what they were talking about when they said they were working on a “Nintendo exclusive” title codenamed Project M.
The release date for Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is set for August 29, 2024. There is no information yet on how much it will cost, but it will be released both physically and digitally.
While it seems fair to assume that this is Nintendo’s last game announcement of the year, you never know with them, especially since it’s still unclear when they will reveal their new console and when it might even come out.
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