Spike Chunsoft Hints At AI: The Somnium Files Sequel News With ‘Hidden Bats’ Site

Spike Chunsoft is the king of the countdown website. Overnight, the developer has launched a brand new teaser website which has got fans’ tongues wagging.

This new site is called ‘Hidden Bats‘, and features 9 CRT TVs stacked, with the middle one letting you play a pretty bizarre video titled ‘Bats489’, which is an unlisted video on the Hidden Bats YouTube channel. Try watching this before you’ve had your morning coffee!

So, those of you eagerly awaiting AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative might have noticed a few things. These strange images might look weird without context, but many of the visuals and images from the above video are actually also in the game’s announcement trailer. What’s more, the teaser site that led to the sequel’s announcement features nine eyes. We expect nine is going to be a key number in this follow-up, then.

As well as this bizarre website, there’s also an “official” Hidden Bats Twitter account, with a sole tweet that simply says “48:00:00” and links to another website called the Sunaiki Foundation. And there’s plenty to gleam from this site, which presumably represents an in-game company.

On the “News” page, there are a number of posts, with one from 1st April announcing the appointment of a new company president, Kagura Iwato. Other posts establish the president’s disappearance just days later and setting up a company task force to search for him.

Then, the top post, dated 6th May, details two more missing persons with photos — Aine Ichirai, a high-school student, and Binato Tohara, a university student. Both students live in the Saitama Prefecture.

The “About” page is a typical company information page, detailing in simple terms what the company does, when it was established, and where it’s based. Interestingly, while the company is based in Tokyo, it has a branch out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Clicking the “Patrons” button takes you back down to the countdown.

This isn’t the first time Spike Chunsoft has used elaborate means to promote its games or stir up chatter among fans, as the company did something unusual for the original AI: The Somnium Files. It opened up a Lemniscate YouTube channel — Lemniscate being an in-game media office and talent agency. Many of the videos on this channel feature Iris (A-set) in a vlog series, with four different story arcs taking place. In some of them, Iris is doing a “Let’s Play”, while in others, she directly discusses the “Cyclops Case”, the main case in the first game.

Thanks to Greatsong1 for sending us the tips on this website launch! We’ll be keeping an eye on it over the weekend to see what other juicy details we can pull from it.

Share your theories with us in the comments down below!