At The Game Awards 2023, former Ghostwire: Tokyo director Ikumi Nakamura revealed Kemuri, the first title from her new studio, Unseen. A new behind-the-scenes video is available, showcasing prototypes of combat and animations, early concept art, and finally answering what the game is about. Check it out below.
Kemuri is billed as a “supernatural online cooperative action PvE game” with the real world merging with the Yokai’s. As Yokai Hunters, players utilize “Fox Window” to peer into the spirit world and use supernatural abilities to fight the Yokai. Game director Misuzu Watanabe explains that utilizing the window can be “quite dangerous” as enemies will notice you.
“Engage in battles, negotiation, and acquire Yokai to possess and increase your power. Unleashing the power of the Yokai, you change your visual appearance, using fashion to take action beyond human knowledge.” Players can collect various Yokai, which Watanabe says will add “high replay value to the game.”
Animation director Raul Ibarra also discusses the eye-catching animation and character movement. “The characters move in a unique way, both in terms of animation, in terms of gameplay that enables players to interact with the world we have.”
Gameplay engineer Aaron Packard adds, “The thing about the movement in the game, it’s really about player expression, and that is about enabling the player to just be funky and do it the way that they really want to do it.” To that end, the team avoided motion capture in favor of keyframe animation.
Watanabe also feels that players will be “surprised” by the vertical level design. “I think players are going to be excited about matching our extremely cool animation with this amazing traversal system and then pairing that with some really vertical spaces that get you to use those game mechanics in a fun way.”
Kemuri doesn’t have a release date or platforms, so stay tuned for more details in the coming months.
