Who is Emio? Nintendo gets less family-friendly with mysterious teaser
A new teaser trailer for something called Emio has been unexpectedly dropped this week.
It looks like a clip for an upcoming horror film, but it comes courtesy of Nintendo. And it’s the strangest thing the traditionally family-friendly Japanese multinational video game company have done yet.
The 15-second teaser, accompanied by the hashtag #WhoIsEmio and prefaced with the warning “This video contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing,” takes place in what seems to be an empty basement.
A faint halo of light illuminates the grainy-shot site of collective nightmares, and for a few seconds, nothing happens. Suddenly, a very spooky trenchcoated figure appears, wearing a smiling paper bag mask and casting an ominous shadow.
How reassuring that Slenderman has a creepy cousin.
Before you can yell “Kill it! Kill it with fire!” viewers are hit with the kanji 笑み男, meaning emio, or “smiling man.”
No other information has been revealed by Nintendo.
This has sent fans into a puzzled state, speculating that it could be the company’s first horror game – a rarity because Nintendo is not known for dabbling with the dark arts which appeal to dreadheads. Nintendo is more renowned for the likes of Mario, Zelda or Pokemon – even if games developed by third parties and published by Nintendo like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem have been tonal curveballs. That and Pikachu does have a dark past not many know about...
Some have joked that the clip is viral marketing for the Switch 2, while others have posited that the Bloober Team behind games such as the remake of Silent Hill 2 could be the developer. They have recently announced they’re working on a new game for Nintendo called Project M, so it could be a decent shout.
Whatever the case, it’s viral marketing done right.
The “18” logo (or MA 15+ depending on which video you watch) indicates that it is indeed a horror game – one with no official description or release date. All that we know for sure is that the Switch logo at the start of the video strongly suggests that whatever this is will be available on Switch console.
However, a Nintendo Australia YouTube trailer seems to have given further clues.
According to Australia's Classification Board, it is rated MA15+ and will include "strong themes, violence and suicide references". A separate rating said the title contains "violence, cruelty, domestic abuse and suicide themes".
Again, hardly on-brand, but an intriguing change of pace.
Nintendo finally tackling horror games is an exciting prospect for many fans, as it’s a genre that has proven extremely popular for other video game developers. It remains to be seen whether Switch fans are ready for whatever grinning dread is coming their way soon.
