Ikumi Nakamura – after having worked on standout games like Okami, Bayonetta, The Evil Within, and The Evil Within 2 – burst onto the scene when she, as the director of the upcoming Ghostwire: Tokyo, unveiled the game at E3 2019. Barely couple of months later though, she announced that she was leaving Tango Gameworks, and revealed a couple of years later that she had done so due to health issues.
Now, she has unveiled her newly formed independent game development studio, named Unseen. Nakamura says that she envisions the studio, which will have “a mix of cultures”, as “a breeding ground for new ideas.”
“I want it to be a place where developers can come and go as they please, like nomads,” she added in an interview with IGN. “It’s a new style of office.”
Work on the studio’s first game is underway, with the project being in the early stages of production, with an emphasis on characters and “an open-minded setting.”
“I want to make a game with characters that reflect real-life personalities and minorities, with an open-minded setting that represents multiple cultures,” Nakamura said.
While more details on the project are obviously scant for now, Nakamura says it’s very much being shaped by her interests and where her expertise lies in terms of flavour and genres. “I like mystery, I like horror films, I love zombies, and the supernatural and science fiction,” she said. “I find these genres fascinating, and I’m good at them, so I want to keep working on games related to these subjects.”
You can learn more about Unseen on the studio’s official website, and check out the team’s unveiling trailer below.