New Game Kemuri Has Massive Anime Meets Sunset Overdrive Vibes

Kemuri is the debut release from UNSEEN, a new game studio founded by Ikumi Nakamura of Tango Gameworks fame. Nakamura was previously best-known for her work on The Evil Within series, as well as Ghostwire Tokyo, which she left mid-development—though not before a particularly iconic E3 appearance to promote the project. Now, she’s back with Kemuri, which seems to be cut from the same cloth.

Since Nakamura left Tango Gameworks in 2019, gamers around the globe have been anxiously awaiting to hear about her next project. After all, it looked as if she were set to succeed her legendary mentor Shinji Mikami (creator of Resident Evil and founder of PlatinumGames) as creative lead at Tango Gameworks—her experience and charisma alone made her an appealing head-of-studio. Alas, this wasn’t meant to be, but with Kemuri, it’s clear that Nakamura is honing in on many of the same high-level elements as Ghostwire Tokyo: urban fantasy with a technical, streetwear aesthetic, hand-sign magic ala Naruto, and worldbuilding that ties directly to real-world Japanese mythology. But Kemuri has a chance to be even better than Ghostwire, if only for its exuberant and unabashed sense of style.

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Kemuri Channels the High-Octane Combat and Traversal of Sunset Overdrive

Before it was one of Sony’s crown jewels, Insomniac Games put out the crass, outlandish, and mechanically bold Sunset Overdrive, a game that combined the devil may care tone of Saints Row with the hectic action of Ratchet & Clank. I can’t tell you much about Sunset Overdrive’s story, but I’ll never forget its gameplay: wallrunning, bouncing off cars, and grinding on various rails and wires, all while raining death with absurd firearms and explosives, never gets old.

Drag weapons to fill the grid

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It’s hard not to see some of Sunset Overdrive in Kemuri which, despite having a radically different premise, carries the same spirit of bombastic and over-the-top gameplay. While we still don’t know the nitty-gritty details of Kemuri’s gameplay loop, its reveal trailer alone showcases a number of diverse movement options, including:

Wall running
Gliding/flying
Grinding on rails and wires
Catapult-style launching
Double-jumping
Grapple-point swinging ala Spider-Man

Movement clearly plays a major role in Kemuri, with a premium placed on variety. The flexibility to choose how to get from point A to point B is often key to a good traversal system, and Kemuri seems to understand that. The same can be said for the game’s combat which, if anything, seems to be even more expansive than the locomotion sandbox.

Kemuri’s Unique Paranormal Premise Could Make for an Especially Rich Gameplay Experience

While Sunset Overdrive isn’t a particularly realistic game, it’s still relatively grounded in reality. There are no demons, evil spirits, magicians, or cosmic forces at play, which can’t be said about Kemuri. Indeed, with Kemuri’s yokai-hunting premise and tantalizing “wear the paranormal” system, it could be a deep, dense action game for the ages.

Through this mechanic, players can channel the powers of the yokai they defeat into high-end, fantastical streetwear, all of which seem to drastically alter gameplay. For example, the aforementioned swinging mechanic comes from an outfit obtained by a froglike yokai. The grapple line, in this case, is actually the player’s own massive, sticky tongue. This variance makes its way into combat too, as players can experiment with different projectiles, summonable weaponry, and martial arts movesets, depending on their magical outfit.

This playful design approach is the most attractive aspect of Kemuri. With games becoming more popular and more expensive, it seems like a lot of developers prefer to play it safe rather than go all-out with inventive, risky ideas. But every now and then, a game arrives that makes such bearishness seem foolish. Here’s hoping Kemuri is one of those games.