GMT March 24, 2021, Wednesday, Stephany Nunneley (Stephany Nunneley)
Former Tango Gameworks chief designer Ikumi Nakamura has established his own independent studio.
In a 17-minute documentary from Game Spark and Archipel, Nakamura discussed her career, from working at Capcom in Okami to becoming a concept artist for Bayonetta to becoming the creative director of GhostWire: Tokyo.
Nakamura left Tango Gameworks in September 2019, a few months after her popular stage performance at E3. According to her, the departure was due to health reasons (thanks to PlayDiaries).
“When you have an idea and work in a team, it may cause some problems. It has reached the point where I feel healthy. If you are unhealthy, you can’t play games. I start to wonder if I can’t feel better. While playing games. I decided to leave too late,” Nakamura said.
“I ran away to some extent. However, I believe that escaping can be very positive. I think it is a healthier choice to escape not just for yourself, but for better choices.”
Since leaving Tango, Nakamura has toured other studios and worked as a freelancer. After traveling around various studios around the world, Nakamura decided to start his own one, which was small in scale and was not mentioned in the documentary.
“This is an opportunity for me to travel and learn to create a good working environment. I decided to use this experience to open my small studio and build my IP. I want to try IP again in the studio.”
There is no mention of Nakamura’s ongoing projects in the documentary.
Ghostwire Tokyo by Tango Gameworks is one of PS5’s larger third-party exclusive products and will be released sometime in October.