Renowned Japanese video game designer Ikumi Nakamura has published a new book titled Project UrbEx detailing her 20 years of urban exploration. Although she is known for her work on games such as The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo, the publication reveals that she has her second greatest passion in life and that this hobby is her For the first time, he reveals how it influenced his successful career in video games.
Starting in 2004, “before the internet and smartphones always gave everyone all the answers,” Nakamura began his quest to find hidden, abandoned places that he heard rumors about on forums dedicated to urban exploration. She quickly fell in love with the process, and in the preface to her book, she writes that each trip felt like a “modern-day treasure hunt” to her.
Over the years, Mr. Nakamura has visited countless destinations around the world, often using stealth as a means of weaving and gaining access between dilapidated buildings. Along the way, she captured the crumbling and unstable interiors and facades of long-forgotten buildings and documented her findings. Preferring to be with herself, she usually began these journeys alone, although in some cases she would bring a select few friends with her.
More than just a virtual escape, Nakamura says these trips were invaluable in building a detailed and immersive video game world. Many gamers will be familiar with the kind of abandoned, sometimes post-apocalyptic landscapes revealed in Nakamura's photographs, but that's not necessarily because of his own adventures in the real world. Instead, they remind us of the digital environments found in the games they play, rugged, mysterious places that imbue these worlds with a sense of wonder.
As fellow photographer and former Ubisoft game designer Liam Wong writes in the book's foreword: “Ikumi's work is a testament to the power of photography to create visually stunning and haunting new worlds, transporting players to places that reflect reality.
“Her photographs capture the essence of the environments she witnessed – spaces that are often forgotten, overlooked and unseen. But these are not just records of neglected spaces; they are and a meditation on the nature of memory. She shows us the beauty that can be found even in the most desolate of places.”
Project UrbEx combines these photos with sections of playful travelogue, video game design theory, and manga illustrations, giving readers an insight into Nakamura's adventures and what they mean to her. Provides a rich source of inspiration. A game for many years.
“The standard narrative is that humans have simply polluted and destroyed our world,” Nakamura writes. “I disagree with that. I think there is a unique beauty to the places that humans have built and thrown away. The power plants, factories, and apartment buildings we no longer use are not palaces. “Maybe, but it's an interesting record of our time on Earth.”
Project UrbEx is published by Thames & Hudson. thamesandhudson.com
