Former Ghostwire: Tokyo creative director Ikumi Nakamura is working with the studio behind indie hit Paradise Killer on its next project.
Nakamura and Kaizen Game Works revealed the collaboration in a Twitter exchange centered around the cultural exchange of British snacks (Kaizen is based in the UK). While Nakamura is building up an unnamed studio of her own, she's also spent the last few years since leaving Tango Gameworks contributing to various projects all over the world, including working on art for Gungrave GORE and creating the concepts for a bunch of Rainbow Six Siege skins.
Working with @nakamura193 has been a dream come true! We're making something amazing together and we can't wait to share it with you.Hope you enjoy your first taste of Hula Hoops, Nakamura-sensei! 😂 https://t.co/iV1qGrhKCtNovember 18, 2021
Kaizen Game Works hasn't revealed what its next project after Paradise Killer will be, but it's exciting to know that Nakamura is involved. Paradise Killer is a vaporwave-infused first-person detective game set in a funky synth simulation inhabited by a cast of strange and sexy immortals, so the studio really could go anywhere from here.
Both Kaizen and Nakamura have a lot of experience with horror games; Nakamura previously worked on Ghostwire and The Evil Within to name a few, and Kaizen co-founder Oli Clarke Smith was formerly a lead designer on The Dark Pictures Anthology at Supermassive Games. Paradise Killer itself has some frightening scenes and situations even if it isn't explicitly a horror game. Whatever their new collaboration is will likely be at least 20% spooky. Maybe even 30%
Edge Magazine staged an investigation of its own into the making of Paradise Killer, tracking its evolution from "Crazy Taxi meets Gone Home" to a modern classic.
