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NOT FOR KIDS

Fans shocked as Nintendo warns its next game isn’t for kids

Nintendo's next game is a horror game with intense scenes
Key art for Emio The Smiling Man, featuring three young adults looking concerned in a dimly lit city street, with a figure wearing a paper bag over their head in the background.

NINTENDO is well-known for its family-friendly games, having spent almost four decades making video games for players of all ages. 

Games like Super Mario Brothers, Kirby, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon have earned Nintendo its family-friendly reputation, often being bright, colourful, and low on scary scenes. 

Emio – The Smiling Man has players tracking down a horrific murderer
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Emio – The Smiling Man has players tracking down a horrific murdererCredit: Nintendo

That’s not to say that all of Nintendo’s games have been appropriate for kids, with some of its published games, like Bayonetta 3 on the Nintendo Switch, earning a PEGI 16 rating, but most of its games have followed the trend. 

The company’s next big game is an outlier, though, as it’s rated PEGI 18 in Europe and the UK, and M 17+ in the US. 

It’s called Emio – The Smiling Man, and it’s the next game in the Famicom Detective Club series, which had two games on the NES before being remade for Switch in 2021. 

Nintendo revealed Emio – The Smiling Man last month after a spooky and mysterious teaser campaign that lasted for a week.

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It’s the first new game in the series in 27 years, and it seems like Nintendo is going all out to make it as spooky as possible. 

Nintendo describes Emio – The Smiling Man as a captivating mystery game in which players have to gather clues, investigate leads, and solve a horrific murder. 

The ESRB, America’s video game rating agency, recently released its rating summary for the game, and it sounds like it could get pretty intense. 

The summary says that some scenes in the game depict strong violence, including a father slapping his children, a corpse hanging from a tie, and somebody cutting their own face. 

It also says the game will show corpses in pools of blood, and has plot points involving child abuse, murder, and self-harm, along with some harsh language. 

It’s safe to say, then, that Emio – The Smiling Man is definitely not appropriate for kids, and parents should take care to make sure they don’t let their children play it. 

Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is set to be released in a few weeks, on August 29, 2024. 

Thankfully, Nintendo fans won’t have to wait long for some more family-friendly Switch games, with three more releases set to come later this year. 

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, a new Zelda entry where you don’t play as Link, is set to be released a month later, on September 26, 2024. 

There’s also a new Super Mario Party game coming in October, and a brand-new entry in the Mario & Luigi series in November. 

For more on Nintendo’s upcoming games, check out our summary of the most recent June Nintendo Direct

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