The Life And Career Of Ikumi Nakamura
Ikumi Nakamura’s mother didn’t want her to work for Capcom. As she tells it, early in life, Nakamura saw a feature on the making of Resident Evil. In it, the game’s creators gather at a bar to drink and talk about the development. Nakamura’s mind was made up. She wanted to be a game developer. She wanted to work with the people she saw on screen. Nakamura’s mom was less impressed.
“I saw it, and I told my Mom, ‘Oh my God, I want to work with them,’” Nakamura tells Game Informer via translator. “And my Mom’s like, ‘No, don’t work with them. They’re just drunk, old men. Don’t do that!’”
Nakamura didn’t take her mother’s warning to heart.
Nakamura’s first job in the industry was at Capcom; she was an artist for its internal team, Clover Studios. That job meant a lot to her, personally. Aside from being a fan, Capcom’s games were something Nakamura bonded over with her father, which offered a personal connection to the work.
During and since, Nakamura’s had a hand in developing several cult-favorite video games, including Ōkami, Bayonetta, and The Evil Within series, working for Platinum Games and Tango Gameworks after Capcom. But for the majority of her career, she was relatively unknown within, and certainly outside, the game industry. That is until E3 2019, when her presentation for Ghostwire: Tokyo thrust her into video game stardom – thanks in no small part to her outgoing and offbeat personality. Nakamura has since become a social media favorite, befriending prominent game developers such as Sony Santa Monica’s Cory Barlog.
