Nintendo’s strange Emio trailer finally unmasked as new Switch game

The recent Nintendo trailers that showed a strange man wearing a smiling paper bag on his head have officially been announced as Emio – The Smiling Man, a new entry in the Famicom Detective Club series.

As the name suggests, the Famicom Detective Club series was released on the original Famicom console, the Japanese version of the NES. These were visual novel/adventure games released on the Famicom with no English localization. That changed in 2021, when both games were remade for the Switch, with a full international release.

Recently, Nintendo uploaded bizarre, analog horror-style trailers, which fans thought were for a brand-new horror franchise. The truth is now out there, as a new trailer on the Nintendo UK YouTube channel has announced that the trailers were teasers for Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club.

Emio – The Smiling Man is a revival of the Famicom Detective Club series

Emio – The Smiling Man is the first entry in the Famicom Detective Club series since 1989, with original designer and writer Yoshio Sakamoto back on board for the new game. Players will once again become part of the Utsugi Detective Agency as they hunt down a vicious killer.

The story centers around a murder case, where a young girl was found murdered with a smiling paper bag on her head. This is connected to a similar unsolved case from 18 years earlier when a paper bag-themed serial killer was on the loose. That leads people to wonder: Is this new killer a copycat, or has the original returned?

Amateur sleuths won’t have to wait long to take on this new case, as Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club will be released on August 29, 2024. It’s peculiar that the game wasn’t revealed during the June 2024 Nintendo Direct, though the dark nature of the game’s story might have forced a separate reveal.

If players can’t wait for the Smiling Man to appear, they can check out the remakes of the original games, The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, which are currently available on Nintendo Switch.