Ikumi Nakamura's studio's first game is about doing co-op parkour and fighting yokai
Ikumi Nakamura, creative and art director on Ghostwire: Tokyo, left Tango Gameworks back in 2019 to start her own company, Unseen. At The Game Awards' this evening, Nakamura appeared onstage to introduce the studio's first project. It's called Kemuri and the cinematic trailer suggests it's a combat parkour game with a colourful urban fantasy setting.
"Kemuri summons you into a realm where the unpredictable meets the extraordinary in an urban jungle where mysterious creatures - yokai - hide amongst the population," says the official description. "Become a Yokai Hunter and use your Fox Window to unravel the mysteries of the city and bring balance to the world. Dive into a thrilling adventure alone or with friends, hunt yokai in style, collect their powers and face even greater challenges."
Yokai are supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore, and pop up in a lot of games. As the one-time director of Ghostwire: Tokyo, Nakamura is obviously no stranger to drawing on Japanese folklore in her character designs.
Nakamura rose to public prominence with an appearance on a previous stage, introducing Ghostwire: Tokyo at E3 2019. She was peppy, stylish and human in an industry where events like these are often just dull marketing parades.
This is Unseen's first announced game, but they have a YouTube channel where they talk about the founding of the studio and interview staff about their work if you want to know more about what sort of experiences they're interested in creating.
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