Spike Chunsoft Hints at AI: Somnium Files Sequel News with Hidden Bats Site

Spike Chunsoft is the king of the countdown website. Overnight, the developer launched a brand new teaser website that got fans talking in tongues.

This new site is called ‘Hidden Bats‘, and consists of 9 CRT TVs stacked on top of each other, the middle of which can play a rather strange video called ‘Bats489’, which is not listed on Hidden Bats YouTube channel. Try watching this before your morning coffee!

So, those of you who are looking forward to the release of AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative may have noticed a few things. These strange images may look strange without context, but many of the visuals and images from the above video are actually also featured in the game’s announcement trailer. What’s more, the teaser site that led to the announcement of the sequel has nine eyes. We expect nine to be the key number in this sequel.

In addition to this strange website, there is also an “official” one. Twitter account “Hidden Bats”with a single tweet that just says “48:00:00” and links to another website called Sunaiki Foundation. And this site, which supposedly represents an in-game company, has a lot to look at.

There are several posts on the News page, one from April 1 announcing the appointment of a new company president, Kagura Iwato. Other reports establish the president’s disappearance just days later and set up a company task force to search for him.

The top post on May 6 then details two more missing persons with photographs – Aine Ichirai, a high school student, and Binato Tohara, a university student. Both students live in Saitama Prefecture.

The About page is a typical company information page that describes in simple terms what the company does, when it was created, and where it is based. Interestingly, although the company is based in Tokyo, it has a branch office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Clicking the “Patrons” button will take you back to the countdown.

This isn’t the first time Spike Chunsoft has used sophisticated means to promote its games or stir up fan chatter, as the company did something out of the ordinary for the original AI: The Somnium Files. It opened YouTube lemniscate channel – Lemniscate is an in-game media bureau and talent agency. Many of the videos on this channel feature Iris (A-set) in a series of vlogs where four different story arcs take place. In some of them, Iris plays “Let’s play” while in others she directly discusses the “Cyclops Case”, the main case in the first game.

Thanks to Greatsong1 for the tips on getting this site up and running! We’ll be following it over the weekend to see what other juicy details we can glean from it.

Share your theories with us in the comments below!