Ikumi Nakamura, who became an internet sensation during the GhostWire: Tokyo reveal at E3 2019, recently worked with Japanese video documentary team known as Archipel. In the video, Nakamura traverses through some abandoned buildings taking pictures, while a camera crew follows her around. She also narrates the video through a pre-recorded interview, where she reveals that she is opening her own indie video game studio, and has already started on a project with herself tapped as the Creative Director.
During the course of the 17-minute video, Nakamura briefly goes over her 16-year career in the video games industry. Her resume is fairly impressive, as she has worked on some big projects such as Okami and Bayonetta, both of which are two of the best games from the Capcom and Platinum library respectively. She then talks about her departure from Tango Games where she was one of the Lead Artists for both The Evil Within and The Evil Within 2. Nakamura states that she left Tango due to her new role on GhostWire: Tokyo impacting her health “I started wondering whether there wasn’t a way for me to make games while feeling better. I took the decision to quit before it was too late.”
Nakamura also mentioned in the video that she was extremely nervous before her now-famous E3 conference, worrying about messing it up. It was during this period where Nakamura’s work would begin to affect her health and resulted in her leaving Tango Games. Nakamura says that she spent time traveling to other studios in order to learn about how their development process works. This was apparently a major factor in her decision to open up her own studio. “I decided to use that experience to open my own small studio and build my IP. I want to try my hand at an IP again in that studio. This is what I’m working on right now.”
As for the new project itself, Nakamura stated that “If I had to compare myself to a Marvel character, I would go with Deadpool, who’s left out of the Avengers. I want to make a game full of dark jokes.” While this is a bit vague, it’s still exciting to see Nakamura continue her endeavors in the video game industry. It will probably be a while before anything substantial materializes from the new studio, but hopefully, Nakamura will have some more information for us in the foreseeable future.