Nintendo is constantly releasing new trailers for upcoming Switch games on its YouTube channel, but not like this. On Wednesday morning, the company uploaded a teaser titled “Emio“, which is only fifteen seconds long, stars a person with a creepy paper bag over their head, and appears to be a teaser for an as-yet-unannounced horror game coming to the handheld hybrid sometime in the future.
The new trailer was announced on social media by the Nintendo of America account with a tweet that simply read “#WhoIsEmio?” and a link to the YouTube page. That was the first sign that something unusual was going on. The second was that the page was age-restricted, an unusual move for the family-friendly gaming company. Here’s a look at the trailer itself:
A child’s piano plays some spooky notes. A person in a trench coat wearing a bag over their head with a smiling jack-o-lantern cut out of it appears in the shot. Their shadow is seen against a wall that appears to be made of cardboard with a piece of tape running down the middle. The camera suddenly pans to the person’s hand, which appears to be missing a finger. Then a close-up of their face is shown before panning back to a shot of a person wearing another paper bag with a Cheshire Cat grin on it. According to fan translations, the Japanese characters that appear at the end mean “smiling man.”
Reactions in the comments section on Twitter were very varied, with some gamers saying “WTF?”, others joking that Nintendo finally caught a recent video game leaker. Some are wondering if this is a sign that Nintendo is developing a first-party horror IP from the ground up. The teaser has all the signs of an attempted viral alternate reality game (ARG) for a potential analog-style scarefest.
Nintendo’s mission statement is to “bring a smile to everyone we come into contact with.” Emio puts a new, sinister twist on this good motto.
Update 10.07.2024 16:37 ET: The timing of the unusual teaser coincides with a recently surfaced interview with the Polish studio Bloober Team. CEO Piotr Babieno unveiled on July 8 that the company currently remaking Silent Hill 2 is also working on a game called Project M for “Nintendo platforms.” It could be a pure coincidence, but there is speculation that Bloober may be involved in Emio, whatever that is.
