Nintendo is dropping a free three-part demo for its upcoming horror, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club from next week.
From Tuesday 20th August, players will be able to grab the prologue and chapter one.
Chapter two will drop on the morning of the 23rd August, and the third and final freebie, chapter three, will be available on 28th August.
Any progress you make in the demos will carry over to the full game.
In Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, a student has been found dead in a chilling fashion, his head covered with a paper bag. There’s an eerie smiling face drawn on it, much like the victims of Emio, the Smiling man, a killer of urban legend.
“Playing as an assistant private investigator, you are tasked with helping police solve this crime, which is reminiscent of a series of unsolved murders from 18 years ago. Has a serial killer returned, or is this the work of a copycat?” the description teases.
“Are these crimes inspired by the Smiling Man story, or the origin of it?”
After a brief glimpse that got horror fans very excited last month, it’s now confirmed that Nintendo’s mysterious horror game is in fact a new entry in the Famicom Detective Club series.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club will launch on 29th August. If you’re unfamiliar with the retro adventure series, this is a Nintendo-developed franchise originally released in the late 1980s. Two games were released, but only in Japan. And there they remained for more than 30 years, until a Nintendo Switch remake of the pair launched worldwide in 2021.