Nintendo Officially Announces Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club

Emyo, the mysterious (apparently horror) game that Nintendo unveiled last week, is actually a new installment in the Famicom Detective Club visual novel saga.

The two influential original games were published for the NES in the 1980s and remained unreleased in the West until 2021, when Nintendo released remakes of both for the Nintendo Switch.

Emio: So, “Smiling Man” will bring back the franchise after more than three decades of absence. The same is happening under the direction of Yoshio Sakamoto, director of Super Metroid and designer of Kid Icarus, Metroid and Wrecking Crew.

In a short interview, Sakamoto explained that the villain of the new Famicom Detective Club, Smiley, will appear after being considered an urban legend.

The main character of the adventure is a young private detective who helps the police solve the murder of a student who was found with a paper bag on his head, with a Smiley smile painted on it.

The goal will be to find out whether the new case marks the return of the legendary serial killer or whether he is a copycat.

Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is coming to Nintendo Switch on August 29th.