The creepy smiling-man trailer revealed Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, a mystery-adventure game for Nintendo Switch. Nintendo identified the title on July 17, 2024, and announced an August 29, 2024 release. The trailer’s eerie imagery prompted horror speculation, but the game belongs to Nintendo’s detective-adventure series—not a confirmed conventional survival-horror game.
What was in the creepy smiling-man trailer?
Nintendo’s July 10, 2024 teaser showed grainy, flickering footage of a trench-coated figure wearing a paper bag with a drawn-on smile. Eerie piano notes played as the video offered brief glimpses of the figure, including a hand that appeared to be missing a finger. It ended with the Japanese text 笑み男, rendered as “Emio” or “Smiling Man,” and the question “#WhoIsEmio?” HotHardware’s July 10 coverage and GameLud’s report from the same day captured the mystery before Nintendo named the game.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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| 1 |
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Emio The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club for Nintendo Switch | $44.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Emio - The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club | $45.45 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Emio - The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club - Compatible for Switch - UK PAL | $67.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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Minecraft - Nintendo Switch | $29.83 | Buy on Amazon |
What game did Nintendo reveal?
The answer was Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. Nintendo announced the game for Switch on July 17, 2024, with a release date of August 29, 2024. Nintendo’s official product page identifies it as a Nintendo Switch game; Engadget’s July 17 report covered the reveal.
What is Emio about?
The player is an assistant private investigator helping police investigate the murder of a student found with a smiling paper bag over his head. The killing resembles a series of unsolved murders from 18 years earlier. Investigators must consider whether the original Smiling Man has returned or whether someone is copying the old crimes.
#1 Best Overall
The Smiling Man is an urban legend created for the game. Series creator Yoshio Sakamoto described the legend to Engadget this way: “The Smiling Man, an urban legend that we invented for the game, is said to offer crying girls a paper bag with a smile drawn on it in exchange for their life.”
Is Emio a horror game?
The teaser uses horror-coded imagery and an unsettling tone, but Nintendo’s reveal places Emio in the Famicom Detective Club series, a mystery-adventure franchise. The trailer’s frightening presentation alone does not establish that the full game is a conventional survival-horror experience. It is more accurate to describe it as a detective mystery built around a disturbing urban legend and murder investigation.
Rank #2
Why does Emio matter to Famicom Detective Club?
Emio is a new story in the Famicom Detective Club series, rather than an unrelated horror title. Sakamoto said that working on remakes of earlier entries led him to feel the series needed a new story, according to Engadget’s coverage of the announcement. That places the game’s dark premise within a continuing detective-adventure series.
Quick Recap
Rank #4
- Minecraft is a game about placing blocks and going on adventures
- Explore randomly generated worlds and build amazing things from the simplest of homes to the grandest of castles
- Play in creative mode with unlimited resources or mine deep into the world in survival mode, crafting weapons and armor to fend off the dangerous mobs
- Play on the go in handheld or tabletop modes
- Includes Super Mario Mash-Up, Natural Texture Pack, Biome Settlers Skin Pack, Battle & Beasts Skin Pack, Campfire Tales Skin Pack; Compatible with Nintendo Switch only
Rank #3
- Brand new. UK Import PAL version. Game in English. UK Nintendo store account may be required for any online features.
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