Ikumi Nakamura (Concept Art)

How long have you been with The Evil Within 2 team? What’s your primary job within the team?

I was mostly in charge of creature design and character design this time— specifically, the Harbinger and Obscura as well as earlier designs of Sebastian.

How did you get into video games as a career? Is there one game in particular that inspired you?

I first decided that I wanted to get into the game industry when I was in the second year of middle school. The game that really got me into the idea was Resident Evil, which I played together with my dad. After that, Capcom’s Devil May Cry also left a strong impression on me, which led to me aiming more seriously to get into the game industry. I went to an art school, graduated, and finally got to work on the games I’d been dreaming of. I was eventually able to work together with Shinji Mikami on his projects, which was fantastic, as Resident Evil originally inspired me to aim for the games industry.

What’s your favorite horror/survival game of all time? Favorite horror movie?

Games: Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

My favorite horror movie recently is The Conjuring. James Wan as director strikes a good balance between fear and entertainment with his Asian-style horror.

What game(s) are you currently playing?

Far Cry series, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Siege. I need fighting in my games.

There are a lot of creative and intimidating creature designs in the game. Is there one in particular whose concept or motif leaves a particularly strong impression for you?

The Harbinger is my favorite. This creature was originally concepted for the first game, but never really fit, so we didn’t use it. When designing The Evil Within 2, we knew that one of the stages this time was all about fire, so we did some more concepts, this time featuring a flamethrower and The Harbinger came to life!

At Tango, there aren’t really many orders for specific types of creatures. This means that, in many cases, the concept designer even goes so far as creating the backstories and names of the characters to fit with the world setting. For example, Obscura was my own personal creation that I even gave a name to.

My designs tend to come from my life experiences and other things that have left a deep impression on me in the past. Deaths of loved ones, memories of major surgery, serious failures, unreasonable orders; past traumas, I guess you could say. I think that that fits well with The Evil Within world’s motif of Sebastian standing up against his past traumas.