Summary
One week ago, completely out of the blue,Nintendo dropped a teaser for a new horror gamereferred to only as “Emio”.
Rumours ran rampant thatit was being developed by Bloober Team, and a rating later revealed that it would havethemes of suicide, domestic abuse, and violence, a stark contrast to the usual Nintendo flagships.
As it turns out, Emio is a new Famicom Detective Club game, the first in over 30 years.
Famicom Detective Club is a classic adventure game duology—comprised of The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind—which was released in 1988 and 1989.
They were later remade in 2021 for Nintendo Switch, but there hasn’t been a brand-new entry in 35 years. However, after seeing the reception to the remakes and returning to the series after so long, producer and writer Yoshio Sakamoto was inspired to make a brand-new game; “I knew we’d be able to make something good. So, I decided to do it.”
Nintendo And Sakamoto Share New Details On Emio - The Smiling Man
The new video not only reveals that Emio is a new entry in the long-dormant Famicom Detective Club series, but it also sheds light on the strange character who wears a shopping bag on their head.
“Emio - The Smiling Man is an urban legend that we made up for this game about a man who appears in front of crying girls and in exchange for their lives gives them a paper bag with a smile on it,” Sakamoto says. “When you think of urban legends, you might think they’re just rumours. But unlike ghost stories, they have more of a sense of realism to them.
This game [is] about a man who appears in front of crying girls and in exchange for their lives gives them a paper bag with a smile on it.
“By clearly depicting the background to the rumour, how you see a case will change. I wanted to make this game into a story that offers players that kind of experience, and so we also implemented a daring plot not used before.”
Don’t expect this to kickstart a whole new line of Famicom Detective Club games, though, as Sakamoto sees it more as the “culmination” of the series, rather than a new beginning. He even teases that the ending “might be divisive for some people.”
It launches just next month on August 29, so we won’t have to wait long to find out more.
