Just one week after teasing an urban legend horror game that it deemed “inappropriate for some users,” Nintendo revealed what its mystery project “Emio” is all about: It’s a new entry in the 35-year-old Famicom Detective Club adventure game series, and it’s out next month.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a brand-new game built around an original urban legend conceived for the title, series producer and writer Yoshio Sakamoto said in a video published by Nintendo on Wednesday. The legend surrounding Emio is that he appears in front of crying girls, promising them “a smile that will last forever.” But Emio is a killer, and he leaves his victims dead and wearing a paper mask with a smile scrawled upon it.
As an assistant private investigator with the Utsugi Detective Agency, players will be tasked with helping police solve a chilling new Emio murder, one that resembles a string of unsolved murders from 18 years ago. Players will hunt down clues, talk to witnesses, and scrutinize testimonies as they try to unravel the truth behind The Smiling Man.
Sakamoto said that Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club will feature a “daring plot” and that “the ending might be divisive for some people,” but he hopes that players will discuss their feelings and theories about the mystery after they’ve solved it. The game’s producer described his new game as “the culmination of the Famicom Detective Club series,” which launched in 1988 with Famicom game The Missing Heir. That graphical adventure game was succeeded by The Girl Who Stands Behind in 1989.
Nintendo re-released those original interactive mysteries for Switch in 2021 with the remakes Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind.
The third game in the franchise, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, will be released for Nintendo Switch on Aug. 29.
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