Former Ghostwire Tokyo creative director Ikumi Nakamura officially announces new studio UNSEEN, news confirmed in new media and a website launched today.

“We are UNSEEN. We are a borderless and mysterious game development studio created by artists, founded by Ikumi Nakamura,” the studio announced both in the new media and on their new site. They also have a newly opened Twitter account, which you can follow over here.

Here’s an introductory video posted to their YouTube:

Nakamura is a veteran in the games industry, who began as an artist at Capcom for their classic game Okami, then moved onto Platinum Games to work on Bayonetta and the sadly-cancelled Scalebound, and her last gig was Tango Gameworks’ soon-to-be-released Ghostwire: Tokyo. She also worked on The Evil Within and its sequel The Evil Within 2, both at Tango Gameworks.

While Nakamura has been in the industry for some time, she got worldwide fame in 2019 with her E3 presentation for GhostWire: Tokyo, winning everyones’ hearts. She left the company a few months later and a bit after that – she announced she had a baby. Following that amazing bit of news, she announced plans to launch her own indie studio.

Nakamura later revealed that her past work at big studios had negatively affected her health, so she decided to make a big change in her life for the better. “As an artist, a game developer and a mother I always feel like I’m on a continuous quest to find my place,” Nakamura said in the video.

She added, “When the pandemic struck my worldview changed. I was concerned how the changes in the world, in addition to becoming a mother, would alter the creator within. In the end, I needn’t have worried. Underneath, I’m still the same creator I’ve always been.”

Here’s a rundown on the new studio:

KUMI NAKAMURA ANNOUNCES ‘UNSEEN’, A NEW, MYSTERIOUS GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIO.

UNSEEN is a borderless and mysterious game development studio created by artists, founded by Ikumi Nakamura.

Nakamura is a Japanese video game artist and director who contributed towards games such as Okami, Bayonetta, The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Nakamura was put into the spotlight following an appearance at E3 in 2019.

Nakamura is joined by an experienced team: Naoki Katakai (Tango Gameworks) as CDO & Environment Art Specialist; Liam Wong (Ubisoft) as Visual Director; Raúl Ibarra (Moon Studios) as Animation Director, Misuzu Watanabe (Capcom) as Game Director and NASS as concept artist & illustrator.

UNSEEN is also made up of the following members: David Steinberg – CTO, Futoshi Miyamoto – CIO, Aaron Packard – Senior Gameplay Engineer, Brian Wanamaker – Senior Development Manager, Eriko Nagasawa – Assistant Manager, Fumie Kishiwada – U.S. Manager, Gus Martin – Gameplay Engineer, Johnny Byrnes – Technical Game Designer, Justin Nesbit – Level Design Director, Kenan Alpay – Senior Game Designer, Mai Mattori – Concept Artist, Miho Nakagawa – Assistant Nakagawa and Shane Canning – Senior Level Designer.

UNSEEN’s headquarters are in Tokyo, Japan. The Tokyo studio acts as a terminal, a place where different cultures intersect and a hub for artists to gather. Our aim is to transcend beyond the realm of video games.

UNSEEN is hiring: are you excited to see where this journey will lead us as we work together on an all-new IP? Are you ready to bring shape to the UNSEEN? We look forward to hearing from you.