Nintendo is bringing a big Emio - The Smiling Man demo to Switch

Like, really big

Nintendo of America

Nintendo announced a hefty Emio The Smiling Man demo ahead of the new Famicom Detective Club game’s launch later in August. The Switch game's demo is so big that Nintendo is rolling it out in three parts over the course of a few days, almost like you’re watching a mystery series.

The first demo goes live on August 19, 2024, and lets you play through the prologue and first chapter. An update on August 22, 2024, adds the second chapter, and the next day, another update throws the third chapter in. Nintendo hasn’t said how many chapters Emio The Smiling Man has, but if it’s similar to The Missing Heir – the second Famicom Detective Club game Nintendo remastered in 2021 – you can probably expect around 11 chapters or so. 

That would make the demo roughly a quarter of the full game you can check out for free, a decent way to see whether it’s your kind of thing or not.

Famicom Detective Club might sound twee, but Emio is tackling some pretty heavy subjects.

“A student has been found dead! His head was covered with a paper bag with an eerie smiling face drawn on it—much like the victims of Emio, the Smiling Man—a killer of urban legend who is said to place such a bag over his victims’ heads,” the official description reads.

“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? Are these crimes inspired by the Smiling Man story, or the origin of it?”

Which is all rather a lot heavier than dead millionaires and school mysteries, hence the game’s M rating.

The full version of Emio The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch on August 29, 2024.