What’s Going On With the Mysterious (Great) Ace Attorney Captions?

Remember a few months ago when an Ace Attorney tweet of the Earth got fans stirred up thinking it was a hint?

Well, the latest stir is a lot harder to explain.

The Earth incident was simple. It was a difficult-to-recognize screenshot from Dual Destinies, accidentally tweeted without text to give it context. You can easily see how that would happen.

But how could new dialogue about Great Ace Attorney characters end up in the subtitles of Ace Attorney Investigations videos??

A fan on Reddit was the first to draw attention to this bizarre situation, and since then it’s spread as more people learned about it. In two videos posted to Twitter, one from July 6 announcing the updated profile picture and banner, and one from August 7 introducing the “Logic” mechanic in Investigations, turning on Twitter’s captions produces two perplexing, out-of-place lines.

In the first video, a caption immediately displays that says, “Van Zieks, you are the only one who knows the truth about this case.” In the second, around 4 seconds in when the dialogue starts, the caption reads, “Van Zieks, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Neither has subtitles for the rest of the video. While the second video is also on Youtube, the Youtube captions are only available in Japanese and just say that music is playing.

So… what’s going on?

This is incredibly bizarre. It’s the sort of thing that feels like it has to be an accident instead of a hint toward a new game, but at the same time, it’s hard to think of a logical explanation for two Ace Attorney Investigations videos with no voiced dialogue to have subtitles referring to a Great Ace Attorney character. Moreover, those two lines of dialogue are not from either existing Great Ace Attorney game or any promotional material that I could find. These are two entirely new lines of dialogue addressing Van Zieks.

Let’s run through the possible explanations for how this could have happened.

Possibility #1: It’s an auto-caption error.

What seems on the surface to be a simple explanation is actually the least plausible. When videos have automatically generated subtitles, it often results in lines that don’t match up with what is actually being said. (For example, I remember an Xbox video that started out, “I’m Larry Hryb, Xbox Live’s Major Nelson,” and the subtitles rendered it as “I’m Larry her black box lies Major Nelson.”) Automatically generated caption mistakes usually stand out not only because they’re out of place, but because they make no sense.

And these videos have no voiced dialogue! For automatic captions to misinterpret the soundtrack and text at the start of the videos as coherent sentences, and then not generate captions for the rest of the video, would be hard enough to believe, let alone that they managed to get “Van Zieks” out of it. I don’t think it’s actually possible that these lines could be automatic subtitles.

Possibility #2: They were intentionally added as a tease.

This was the first thing I thought when I saw it: an alternate reality game (ARG) using these mysterious lines to tease the existence of an upcoming new Great Ace Attorney game (possibly the Great Ace Attorney Investigations game I want so much). It would explain why each video has one line of dialogue. Presumably we would get another trailer next month with a third line of dialogue.

On the other hand, Capcom has never advertised Ace Attorney like this before, and there’s nothing else that would suggest an ARG. More importantly, the second video’s subtitle does not exist in the corresponding Japanese tweet, and the first video wasn’t posted in Japanese at all. It would be very strange for them to tease a new game through English channels first.

Possibility #3: They were intentionally added as a prank.

We can’t ignore the possibility that someone running Capcom’s social media added these captions solely to stir fans up, with no deeper meaning behind it.

But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like a joke. The lines aren’t funny, and they aren’t referencing anything in particular. If this is a prank, the whole joke would be just “you want another game and aren’t getting one,” which would be rather mean-spirited for an account that has otherwise engaged with fans in a friendly way.

Not to mention the lack of attention being drawn to it, which seems unusual for a prank.

Possibility #4: They were accidentally added and are meant for a new game announcement.

It’s plausible that the Twitter videos were supposed to have a “music playing” caption like the Youtube video does, but someone uploaded the wrong subtitle lines. Instead of adding the music indicator, they used lines meant for an entirely different video announcing a new Great Ace Attorney game.

Voiced trailers aren’t uncommon for Ace Attorney, which would explain why those lines have captions. They could also be for a video where the text is only in Japanese, with subtitles created to share it with the English-speaking audience. That’s the sort of thing that might happen if they were announcing a new Ace Attorney game in Japan with Japanese game assets for the trailer but wanted to announce localization from the start.

Since I really want more Great Ace Attorney (and especially The Great Ace Attorney Investigations), I can’t help but hope for this option.

Possibility #5: They were accidentally added and are meant for a non-game video.

Finally, it’s also possible that the previous case occurred but the accidental subtitles are meant for a video that isn’t a new game announcement, but rather something else. For example, Capcom recently held a lot of polls in Capcom Town where the results were presented by Phoenix and Maya, so it could be something like that with Great Ace Attorney characters (though it would be strange for that to be voiced).

The only problem with possibilities #4 and #5 is that this would require the subtitle to accidentally be added to the wrong video twice. With two different lines. In videos spaced almost exactly a month apart.

I’m baffled.

Once again, these are not existing lines of dialogue from The Great Ace Attorney. These are new lines of dialogue. No matter what they’re for, Capcom has new lines of dialogue addressing van Zieks.

This situation is bizarre. I think we need Professor Layton to help us solve this one, because while hoping this is a tease for a Great Ace Attorney Investigations game feels like a huge stretch, the “logical” alternatives are almost harder to believe.

When I finished The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, I realized to my surprise that I no longer cared as much about Ace Attorney 7. I wanted more time with the Great Ace Attorney cast instead. I especially wanted a Great Ace Attorney Investigations, but that hope felt impossibly out of reach. Now… could it actually happen?

I know one thing for sure: as soon as a new Ace Attorney trailer appears on Twitter, I’ll be checking for subtitles.

What do you think is the explanation behind these perplexing lines?