A remake of the classic 1983 adventure Super Famicon game The Portopia Serial Murder Case will release in 2027, including new content produced under the supervision of original creator Yuji Horii.
Titled Next: The Portopia Serial Murder Case, the title was shown off during the Japanese language version of the Nintendo Direct live stream from September 9. Not only is it a full remake of the original, it also features five new stories that seem to incorporate characters from The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case: The Okhotsk Disappearance, another adventure game written by Yuji Horii that was already remade in 2024. Kyoji Asano from WIT Studio is providing the character designs.
Within gaming history, the importance of The Portopia Serial Murder Case cannot be overstated. Not only did it manage to launch the career of Yuji Horii, who would later go on to create Chrono Trigger and the Dragon Quest series, it is also widely considered to be one of the very first mystery games and a forerunner to the medium of visual novels. Hideo Kojima also drew heavy inspiration from it for Snatcher, released in 1988 for the PC-8801 and MSX2.
Even so, the pixel graphics have always presented a huge barrier to entry for modern audiences. With any luck, a modern lick of paint can alleviate this in much the same way as the Famicom Detective Club series.
