The notoriously family-friendly Nintendo have seemingly cryptically teased a terrifying new horror game for Switch that could be titled The Smiling Man.
Uploaded to Nintendo of America’s official Twitter/X and YouTube accounts earlier today, the 15-second, age-restricted teaser shows nothing but a man in an empty room wearing a trenchcoat and a paper bag on his head.
Japanese kanji characters flashing up on the screen roughly translate to “smiling man”, which explains the scribbled smile on the man’s bag head.
The description for the video simply reads #WhoIsEmio – and, interestingly, the kanji reads emi otoko, so it’s safe to assume Emio is our Smiling Man in question, right?
Whatever (or whoever) Emio is, the mysterious game carries an ESRB rating of Mature – a far-cry from Nintendo’s usual sunshine-and-rainbows Mario, Pokémon and Zelda content.
Kotaku note that this could be a Nintendo first-party horror IP, or something along the lines of a viral alternate reality game (ARG). Some intrigued fans even noted similarities to Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink…
Whatever it is, we’re very much here for it. We’ll bring you more updates on The Smiling Man and Emio as they roll in.
