Nintendo wants to know who Emio is, and we’re assuming until it’s stated otherwise that they’re just Mario’s strangest villain yet

Nintendo has hinted at a new project with the hashtag “Who is Emio?” and I must say, I’m feeling quite uneasy about it.

Hey Nintendo, are you okay there? Do you need someone to check up on you? Because you just posted a bizarre tweet linking to a video simply titled Emio, which showcases grainy footage of a man in a trench coat wearing a paper bag with a smiley face on it. Yeah, that’s not your usual content, Nintendo. If you think this is some sort of joke, I wish I could confirm that, but no, this is something Nintendo has unexpectedly dropped on a random Wednesday. The video concludes with some Japanese text that machine translation suggests translates to “smiling man,” which doesn’t really offer any more clarity or comfort to this strange situation.

There’s also a website you can visit, but it doesn’t provide any additional information; it essentially features the same video as above. However, you can get a closer look at the man in the smiling brown paper bag – it seems there are a couple of different bags that Emio (presumably) wears, one with crescent moon eyes and a big filled-in smile, and the other with round eyes and an equally big smile, complete with teeth. While Nintendo isn’t typically known for creating games for mature audiences, the trailer does carry a Mature 17+ rating, suggesting that the game may have a similar rating.

This appears to be a horror game, so excluding Luigi’s Mansion (which you really shouldn’t), this seems to be Nintendo’s first first-party title in the horror genre. I’m sure we’ll learn more about Emio soon, but until then, I’ll be scratching my head in confusion.