There are two time periods in my life; before I watched the new Nintendo Switch Ring Fit Adventure trailer, and after I watched the Ring Fit Adventure trailer. Released today, the trailer ostensibly highlights a new fitness-focused video game for the Switch. It looks like a fun and helpful exercise tool for those among us who have yet to be lured in by the gym. However, outside of the game clips and explanations of how the device works, there is something bubbling beneath the surface. Something unsettling. Something not quite right.
Before we begin unraveling the horrors behind the trailer, you must first watch it in full. It is difficult, but it is important that you do so:
You feel it too, don’t you? Technically, you’ve just watched a trailer for Ring Fit Adventure. But it’s not the game you’re thinking about.
It’s him.
Who is this man and what does he want?
Nintendo trailers often feature “real” people enjoying their games in a “real” environment, in order to demonstrate how you and your friends and family can do the same. The people used in these trailers aren’t your family and friends, of course; they’re objectively more attractive and take much more enjoyment out of their lives. They’re your friends and family, if said friends and family had better bone structure and weren’t overwhelmed by student and medical debt. They’re supposed to give you a feel of how you could enjoy these fun Nintendo games with others, and we’re okay with that.
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But this trailer is different. We’re introduced to two hosts; a woman with the unflinching smile of a carnival entrance, and a man who looks as though he may burst from out of the YouTube video and into the real world at any point. It is him who I cannot stop thinking about.
Three seconds into the trailer and Ring Fit Adventure man bellows his first line. He launches into it as though it’s a convulsion, his chest lurching forward as he greets the viewers: “Hey everyone!”
It should be a friendly, innocuous greeting, but it is said with so much force that you feel it. His voice falters a little on the “Hey.” You get a sense that they only did one take of this trailer because if they spent any more time on it, there was a chance that this man would explode.
Then we get a close-up of Ring-man. His head is solid and rectangular, like a handsome fire hydrant. It looks like it could replace every president’s head on Mount Rushmore, but no one would even notice because it was so well-suited to being carved in stone.
Ring-man’s eyes are red. Noticeably red. The kind of red that must have been spotted by the trailer’s editing team, which presents even more questions. Why did they leave these close-ups in? Who was calling the shots here? Is Ring-man the ventriloquist and Nintendo but the puppets?
The source of the redness of the eyes is unclear. Anger, sadness, perhaps a combination of the two. “You might even break a sweat while playing [Ring Fit Adventure],” he says, with the subtle condescension of a man who has zero percent body fat.
On their own, these various traits would be alarming enough. But combined, Ring-man has the presence of an apex predator being granted an audience with his prey. He’s the lion, we’re the antelope, and this lion really wants us to buy Ring Fit Adventure.
Is this woman okay?
Ring-woman has her own weird stuff going on, but such is the absurdity of Ring-man that she is dramatically overshadowed. Take the above screenshot of the trailer, for example. Look at his expression. Just look at it. If Ring-man were to unhinge his jaw, then lock his teeth around his co-presenter’s head, slowly devouring her while she continued to discuss the Switch Ring, would you even be surprised? Are those the snarled teeth of a man who isn’t considering eating the human standing next to him?
This isn’t even the first time he does this. Later on in the trailer, there’s a close-up of Ring-woman, the cameraman presumably trying his best to keep him out of shot. But he doesn’t allow that. Ring-man begins leaning in, just his teeth and nose visible. We can’t see his eyes, so I assume his pupils have rolled back into his skull leaving just the white sclera, like a Great White Shark preparing to feed.
And then we’re back. Two regular, completely normal, regular definitely-not-primordial-demons-wearing-flesh-suits humans, just smiling for the camera as non-demons do.
“Visit the Nintendo Switch website for details,” Ring-man informs viewers, and then the camera lingers on them a little too long.
I don’t know who these two people are, or what they want, but I do know one thing for certain: I am buying Ring Fit Adventure, because after this trailer, I am terrified of what will happen if I don’t.
