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<\/article>\nIt can\u2019t be overstated how profound an influence horror had on Nakamura; it\u2019s something she constantly brings up when talking about her early life. Growing up, she says she watched horror movies every day, such as American classics like Return of the Living Dead<\/em>. She also loved staples of Japan\u2019s horror boom from the mid-to-late \u201990s and 2000s, such as Pulse <\/em>(Kairo <\/em>in Japan), directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.<\/p>\n At the same time, as she puts it, Japan was in a \u201cgolden age\u201d of video game development, and Capcom was just one of many companies spearheading that charge. Nakamura spent a lot of time playing games in the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry series \u2013 which, coincidentally, have been directed in the past by Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya, who Nakamura would spend most of her career working alongside.<\/p>\n Nakamura went to art school in Tokyo and later the Amusement Media Academy to study game design. However, only a couple years into her education, her life was turned on its head. While out on his motorcycle, her father was in an accident and passed away suddenly, sending her life into \u201ctotal chaos.\u201d She spent a lot of her early life acting reckless, but Nakamura says her father\u2019s death changed her, leaving her focused on protecting her family.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter his death, I totally changed,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n But one thing didn\u2019t change: Nakamura\u2019s dream of working at Capcom. If anything, her father\u2019s death reinforced her desire to join the company after her schooling. He loved Capcom\u2019s games, and during his funeral Nakamura made sure he was still able to play Resident Evil.<\/p>\n \u201cIn his coffin, I put a copy of the Resident Evil strategy book and a PlayStation controller,\u201d she says. \u201c[So] that he could play the game in another dimension. But I forgot that Japan is a cremation culture, so his bones and the controller got stuck together. I looked at it [as] he never gave up the game, even when he was a bone! I was impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Nakamura had to apply twice, but she joined Capcom in 2004, coming on board its internal Clover Studio. Initially set up to develop Viewtiful Joe 2, Clover was a semi-autonomous studio within Capcom\u2019s Osaka, Japan headquarters, tasked with developing new intellectual properties. In line with Nakamura\u2019s influences, Mikami and Kamiya worked as directors for the studio \u2013 the former overseeing 2006\u2019s God Hand and the latter helping make Viewtiful Joe 2 and \u014ckami, released in 2004 and 2006, respectively.<\/p>\n Nakamura\u2019s first project was \u014ckami. She joined Clover as a 3D environment artist \u2013 a job, she says, she was \u201cincompetent\u201d at. Despite her lack of experience, and the fact that some people within the company weren\u2019t treating her well, Nakamura applied herself and tried to learn as much as possible on the project.<\/p>\n \u201cI was new, I didn\u2019t know really how to work, and was constantly told that I would be fired,\u201d she says. \u201cI was pushed around, overloaded with tasks and challenges. And so I went around to different sections, to ask about \u2018how to work better\u2019 and what I can help with, helping with anything I could, making animations or small stages, or objects.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Nakamura describes Capcom as an \u201cold-school\u201d developer, full of behavior that wouldn\u2019t fly in a modern workplace. For example, it wasn\u2019t uncommon to see developers sleeping under their desks to save themselves a commute \u2013 something presented to the public on television in both Japan and the United States. When she was a kid, Nakamura says that when she saw that footage it seemed like a dream job. Now that she\u2019s older, not so much. \u201c[I felt like], \u2018Oh my God, that\u2019s what I wanna do,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut then looking back, like, no, that is totally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n It also wasn\u2019t uncommon for Capcom management to let their tempers get the best of them, lashing out and yelling at employees or hitting desks and kicking trash cans. \u201cThey would just kind of hit everything around them,\u201d Nakamura says, adding that it showed her the kind of company culture she doesn\u2019t want to create in the future, for which she\u2019s thankful.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, it wasn\u2019t effective,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople do get frustrated, that happens, but showing that physically or verbally, that creates fear in the work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow I know what not to do,\u201d Nakamura says.<\/p>\n The relationship between Capcom and Clover was an acrimonious one, with constant clashes between management and Kamiya over \u014ckami\u2019s direction. According to Nakamura, her impression was that Capcom saw Clover as \u201cjust the group of weirdos\u201d and a \u201ctotally separate entity.\u201d As an example, she points to the Wii port of \u014ckami, developed by Ready At Dawn, which didn\u2019t include the names<\/a> of the original developers or the Clover logo in the credits.<\/p>\n In 2008, Capcom issued a statement about the missing credits, saying the removal was due to a pre-rendered cutscene containing the Clover logo, which the publisher did not have the legal right to use in a game the studio wasn\u2019t directly involved in. \u201cWe also didn\u2019t have the source to the credit movie itself, so we couldn\u2019t just use it and remove the Clover logo,\u201d Capcom said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure something happened \u2013 politics,\u201d Nakamura says. \u201cBut it\u2019s not a cool thing to do for the developers who actually spent hours and effort to create the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the issues, Nakamura isn\u2019t wholly negatively about her time with Capcom. In fact, since \u014ckami\u2019s development wrapped, she\u2019s been open about her desire to make sequels<\/a> that deliver on the original vision of the first game. As she puts it, the game Capcom released was \u201cprobably one-third\u201d of what Kamiya initially had in mind. And now that Nakamura has worked for other developers \u2013 specifically ones partnered with publishers based in the States \u2013 she admits to wondering whether or not she should\u2019ve stayed at Capcom.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat would\u2019ve happened?\u201d Nakamura muses. \u201cBecause, out of all the companies I worked with, Capcom is a company that allowed artists to input their artistic sense in the game the most.\u201d<\/p>\n When we point out we expected the opposite answer, that Capcom was the most restrictive, Nakamura adds, \u201cMaybe that\u2019s what Japanese people who stayed in Japan [and] didn\u2019t deal with other companies overseas, they might say that.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Nakamura didn\u2019t stay. When numerous people left Capcom and Clover to found their own studio, Nakamura went with them, starting her journey at Platinum Games.<\/p>\n In retrospect, Nakamura says it\u2019s probably for the best that her first project as director didn\u2019t get made.<\/p>\n Early into her time at Platinum, Nakamura submitted a proposal for a Nintendo DS game that caught the eye of Mikami, who came over to Platinum as a contract director and external board member. The project, as Nakamura tells it, was to be several small \u201ceerie\u201d games touching on \u201ctaboo subjects.\u201d The project was greenlit, and despite her lack of experience, Nakamura got to lead her own team. It didn’t go well, and the game’s subject matter ended up being a point of contention.<\/p>\n \u201cI even went to Nintendo to give a presentation, and they told me if Platinum Games released this through the DS, not that it will be the end of Platinum Games, but Platinum Games will have a really, really bad reputation,\u201d Nakamura says.<\/p>\n About one year into development, Nakamura\u2019s project was canceled and she was moved to the team making the first Bayonetta, a stylish action game in-line with director Kamiya\u2019s earlier work on Devil May Cry. She was a concept artist \u2013 even if it was a partially self-appointed title. \u201cI wanted to graduate from being an environmental artist, so I took the liberty of calling myself a concept artist and started drawing designs,\u201d Nakamura says. \u201cI think I acted strongly [and felt] that I should do what I wanted to do even if it was in an organization.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Nakamura was playing a lot of games developed by American studios \u2013 especially Uncharted, Gears of War, and Dead Space. This influenced her approach to game design, specifically when it came to Bayonetta\u2019s user interface. Based on the game\u2019s female focus, she also brought in influences from famous women throughout history, fashioning Bayonetta\u2019s accessories after women such as Cleopatra. To accentuate the over-the-top aspects, Nakamura suggested making buildings gigantic and the action outlandish \u2013 all aspects that made Bayonetta stand out when it was released in 2009.<\/p>\n At the same time, Nakamura began thinking about how to develop games that appealed to a global audience, not just a Japanese one. Her hope was to show players in other countries how cool Asian cities and culture were \u2013 though her specific vision wouldn\u2019t be heavily applied until later games.<\/p>\n Following Bayonetta, Nakamura served as art director on Platinum\u2019s now-canceled Scalebound. While Microsoft signed on to publish, it still never saw the light of day. Nakamura says her time with its troubled development left her with lasting lessons for future projects.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I still think about is, \u2018Was I [successful] in creating what the director wanted to do?\u2019\u201d she reflects. \u201cThe concept wasn\u2019t fixed; it didn\u2019t have a strong vision. What the publisher wanted, what the director, Kamiya-san, wanted, and what the team wanted were all kind of not looking at the same direction. So, it didn\u2019t have the unity. It was my job to create the unity, and I don\u2019t think I was able to provide that. So that\u2019s something I felt like I couldn\u2019t do back then. What I learned is the director has to have a very clear, strong vision from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time Scalebound was canceled, Nakamura had already moved on from Platinum. When Mikami founded his own studio, Tango Gameworks, in 2010, Nakamura was part of the group that joined him, allowing her to move back to her home city, Tokyo. It was not only the job she\u2019s held the longest thus far in game development, but the one that thrust her into the spotlight.<\/p>\n Joining Tango gave Nakamura a chance to do something she\u2019d wanted to do her entire life: make a survival horror game. And it would be one directed by Shinji Mikami, the director of the first Resident Evil, no less. But it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n The Evil Within was Tango\u2019s first official release and Mikami\u2019s return to survival horror. However, the developer had previously experimented with an open-world science-fiction survival game called Noah. As detailed in a 2014 Polygon<\/em> interview with Mikami<\/a>, early in the company\u2019s history, Tango hit financial issues. Noah was canceled and Tango was in trouble. Until later in 2010, when publisher Bethesda purchased the company.<\/p>\n \u201cCompared to the image of a typical Western game publisher, Bethesda is probably more like a typical Japanese publisher,\u201d Mikami said at the time. \u201cThey don\u2019t force creative people to do stuff. They give that creative freedom to developers.\u201d<\/p>\n Nakamura tells the story a bit differently. \u201c[Mikami] really wanted to create new types of games, not [keep] doing the same things he\u2019s done,\u201d she says. \u201cBut people in the world wanted him to create \u2013 expected him to create survival horror.\u201d<\/p>\n Nakamura found herself on a project she had dreamed of making with the caveat that, in her mind, the director didn\u2019t want to make it. Rope in Western publisher politics \u2013 something Nakamura up to that point wasn\u2019t familiar with \u2013 and it became a complicated project. The Evil Within, released in 2014, was the last project Mikami directed, and the developer has since stepped into a producer role to allow younger developers to direct games. Nakamura was one of those developers.<\/p>\n After some time on The Evil Within 2, released in 2017, Nakamura began leading development on what would become Ghostwire: Tokyo. Her direction was to take a bunch of elements from her love of the occult, supernatural, and urban legends, and combine them into a contemporary setting \u2013 which in this case, as the name implies, is Tokyo.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember when we were talking about Bayonetta, that I wanted people from all over the world to think about how cool Asian urban cities are?\u201d she asks. \u201cSo, I wanted to bring that back. I was like, \u2018Finally, I can make a video game that can express my vision that way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As of this writing, Ghostwire remains unreleased, but Nakamura filled us in on some initial ideas. Set in 2020, people throughout the world have started to disappear, leaving those left behind to assume it might be a virus taking people out. To combat this, people begin wearing masks. However, in 2021, amid the COVID-19 crisis, Nakamura says she\u2019s glad that iteration of the story isn\u2019t being released. However, she still speaks proudly of the general setting, atmosphere, and supernatural direction.<\/p>\n Nakamura had the chance to present Ghostwire to the world for the first time at E3 2019, where she got on stage during Bethesda\u2019s press conference to announce the game. Understandably, the idea of getting on stage in front of thousands of people (not to mention many more watching live) was nerve-wracking. As Nakamura tells it, the numerous rehearsals over three days didn\u2019t help. Nakamura isn\u2019t a native English speaker, and she says she had trouble with her lines, so she practiced them over and over while pacing around backstage.<\/p>\n However, at the last second, Nakamura says the show\u2019s producer told her to forget her pre-rehearsed lines and to go out on stage and be herself.<\/p>\n Nakamura\u2019s presentation became one of the standout moments of that E3. While debuting Ghostwire, her passion for the project endeared people to her, and her use of humor to explain the game\u2019s atmospheric world was a welcome change of pace compared to the numerous self-serious presentations usually filling E3. Overnight, Nakamura became a sensation, a meme, and in her own way, a celebrity.<\/p>\n \u201cI was simply happy about all the responses, because I was really passionate about presenting what I was passionate about,\u201d Nakamura says. \u201cAnd also, I\u2019m a big fan of manga and anime, so I love all those memes. […] And that ended up [leading to] people focusing on game creators. So, I feel that was a success.\u201d<\/p>\n But Nakamura\u2019s time on Ghostwire was about to end. Eventually, the stress of developer-publisher politics and the publisher having control over the game affected her negatively. Nakamura began having nightmares about higher-ups within the company. This went on for years, she says, starting with just talking in her sleep around once a week, and then progressing to daily nightmares.<\/p>\n \u201cThe nightmare I had was that when I came to work, all the members of the development team had disappeared,\u201d Nakamura recalls. \u201cThen there was an altar in the middle of the room, and when I looked at the picture, it was of my boss, which was a strange story.\u201d<\/p>\n Her health declined around this time as well and four years into development on Ghostwire, Nakamura made the decision to leave both the project and Tango. Getting to that point wasn\u2019t easy. Nakamura likens Ghostwire to a child and herself as the mother. Four years is a long time to lead a project, and walking away was a difficult call.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a creative director, so this is literally my baby,\u201d she says. \u201cMy four-year-old baby. So, to let that go \u2013 ask any mother to let her baby go. It was that gut-ripping.\u201d<\/p>\n Nakamura became a free agent, but as she tells it, she left without much of a plan. And then something unexpected happened. Once news of her departure hit the internet, she began getting offers from developers worldwide, and she befriended some of the bigger names in film and game development, including Sony Santa Monica\u2019s Cory Barlog, film director J.J. Abrams, and Rainbow Six Siege creative director Leroy Athanassoff. Regaining her health, Nakamura even traveled around the world to visit studios, learning from different creators.<\/p>\n But there was one unexpected twist: Around this time, Nakamura became pregnant. It made some studio visits difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cI had never wanted to have children myself,\u201d Nakamura says. \u201cBecause I thought that my children would be a game. In fact, I became healthy and an alien came into my body. I flew all over the world and visited many studios while being amazed and throwing up from the bad effects of morning sickness. I feel like I have thrown up in every studio. It\u2019s a memorial for me. Don\u2019t worry, I threw up without making a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n In March 2021, Nakamura announced she had designed a new set of skins for Rainbow Six Siege, the product of her new relationship with the developer. More than usual, the news was picked up by mainstream game press outlets, cementing Nakamura\u2019s stardom, even when it came down to something as small as skins. Additionally, Nakamura conceptualized and directed her first music video for the Japanese dance group Dazaifu Mahoroba-shu. She also says she\u2019s consulted and done design work for other games, but doesn\u2019t elaborate on which as they aren\u2019t out at the time of this writing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n Nakamura is at a new stage in life, and she\u2019s taking advantage of it. On top of her work consulting and designing as a freelancer, she recently announced she\u2019s opened her own studio. And while the company will initially be headquartered in Tokyo, Nakamura says she\u2019s prioritizing diversity within her workforce, and hopes to open other offices in countries such as the U.S. and China. All her current team members, though working from home, are scattered across the globe, she tells us.<\/p>\n Nakamura has also become a visible female Japanese game developer. While people such as Mikami and Kamiya are known by name and for their work, it\u2019s not as common for women to receive similar recognition. Nakamura is in a rare spot to inspire others to make similar impacts on the industry, and it\u2019s not an opportunity she plans to waste. She says she plans to put other women developers in the spotlight and highlight individual creators when the time comes.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a female creator who is like a big sister to me, who takes care of me,\u201d Nakamura says. \u201cShe said to me, \u2018I want you to sit on the throne someday, because your success will encourage me and many other female developers.\u2019 [At the] time, I didn\u2019t really understand what she meant by that. But now I know what it means.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was purely a coincidence that I was known, I became somewhat famous,\u201d she says. \u201cYes, it was a coincidence, but I\u2019m going to make that into an opportunity and use it to work for me.\u201d<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in Issue 338<\/a> of<\/em> Game Informer.<\/em><\/p>\n Header image: Kerri Solaris<\/i>\u00a0(@kerrifique<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/the-life-and-career-of-ikumi-nakamura-2.jpg\")
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\u014ckami <\/article>\nPlatinum Games<\/h2>\n
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Bayonetta concept art by Ikumi Nakamura <\/article>\nTango Gameworks<\/h2>\n
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The Evil Within’s “Keeper” enemy, designed by Ikumi Nakamura <\/article>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/the-life-and-career-of-ikumi-nakamura-1.png\")
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Ikumi Nakamura
\nIkumi Nakamura behind-the-scenes at E3 2019 <\/article>\nHer Own Studio<\/h2>\n
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