UNSEEN
Postwire
Ikumi Nakamura shares her vision for Unseen, a new ‘borderless’ studio
Had things worked out differently, we might have been quizzing Ikumi Nakamura elsewhere in this issue, for the Post Script of our Ghostwire: Tokyo review. Only a few months after being introduced as the game’s creative director at Bethesda’s E3 2019 conference and becoming a star overnight, the shock announcement of her departure emerged from Tango Gameworks, later revealed to be a result of declining health. But if there are any regrets at having given up on a project she had already spent four years on, Nakamura doesn’t show it today.
“I had to leave in order to accomplish and further broaden my own vision,” she tells us. “Occasionally, I like to change direction of where I’m headed, but I had not really done that since I started working in the game industry.” Elaborating on how making games had been at the expense of her physical and mental health, she says that she decided on making a “temporary retreat” to avoid reaching a point “where I would no longer be able to create games, or enjoy games at all. That was not what I wanted”.