Holy Horror Mansion gets its first gameplay trailer and a 2027 window

Level-5 debuted the first gameplay footage for Holy Horror Mansion during the LEVEL5 VISION 2026 II Dream broadcast on September 10, finally putting a 2027 release window on the project. The ghost-hunting RPG is coming to PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam. Originally announced back in September 2024 during a previous Vision event, the game sat in a quiet development phase for two years. Now, we know exactly what it looks like in motion.

The official website outlines the basic setup, which leans heavily into classic children's anime tropes. The protagonist lives in a mansion (which functions more like a large apartment building) managed by their grandmother. After finding a strange camera in a sealed room, they start seeing ghosts and getting dragged into supernatural incidents. Level-5 is calling the project a "Ghost Craft RPG." They're aggressively positioning it as their next massive cross-media franchise. It's a very obvious spiritual successor to the Yo-kai Watch series, aiming for that same mix of everyday suburban life and monster collection.

Shoot the manhole cover

The core exploration mechanic revolves around a camera-shaped Mononoke named Cameron. Players run around a vibrant, cartoonish town and use Cameron to perform "Ghost Shots" on everyday objects. As Cameron explains in the trailer:

"この町には「ソウル」が溢れているんだ。さっそくワタシの機能を使って町をよーく見てみろ！" (This town is overflowing with 'Souls'. Hurry up and use my functions to take a good look at the town!)

This reveals hidden souls trapped inside mundane items like street lamps and sewer grates. The trailer shows the player snapping a picture of a manhole cover to recruit a Mononoke named Mandy.

The UI briefly pops up to show Mandy's level 1 card stats, confirming that every spirit you find becomes a playable asset in your deck. It's a clever way to make players pay attention to the background art.

The environment itself is highly interactive. Level-5 refers to this transformation mechanic as "Playgroundification." The town physically changes to reveal hidden paths, athletic traversal challenges, and "Soul Keys" needed to unlock sealed spirits. The scale shifts dramatically depending on where you look. At one point in the footage, the protagonist finds a portal inside a literal slice of cake. They shrink down to enter a candy-coated, strawberry-filled micro-dungeon called "Cake no Ii Dungeon."

Dancing with urban legends

Combat triggers at night, shifting the game from exploration into a card-based rhythm system. The battle UI displays your active team as a deck of cards, with dance commands scrolling across the screen. You aren't just picking attacks from a menu. You have to hit rhythm prompts to execute moves.

The footage highlights a boss fight against Kuchisake-onna, the famous Slit-Mouthed Woman from Japanese urban legends. Seeing a terrifying folklore staple rendered in bright, bouncy cel-shaded graphics is a strange contrast, but it fits the tone perfectly.

Defeating these bosses adds them to your collection. After you beat the Slit-Mouthed Woman, the game doesn't just give you a generic victory screen. She physically transforms into a tiny, cute miniature version of herself named "Slit-Mouthed Saki" and joins your party as an allied card.

The rhythm mechanics and card collecting look like a smart evolution of the Yo-kai Watch formula. I really hope this gets an English translation. Level-5 has a spotty history with international localizations, often leaving their weirder spin-offs stranded in Japan for years. A simultaneous PC and console release in 2027 gives me some optimism that they're planning a global rollout from day one. We'll find out next year.