“The idea of Ghostwire Tokyo is to provide players with an easy way to experience the unnatural lurking in the natural, it is the eerie echo heard in urban legends. And U.S we used many urban legends Japanese as the foundation for the strange events that occur in Tokyo, but we have not made a game that was only for Japanese or Asians “: so he told us Kenji Kimura, game director of the new game by Tango Gameworks, a studio known for its disturbing horror titles and founded in Shinji Mikamifather of the saga of Resident Evil.
According to Kimura, urban legends stem from universal worries and anxieties and for this reason, even if there may be slight differences in the versions of the various countries, they are a patrimony of the collective imagination, they are persistent and are handed down: “An example could be that of the taxi driver who picks up a customer late at night, a lady dressed in white, and after driving for a while, he turns to look in the back seat and finds it empty. Even if it never stopped, the empty seat is wet. Legends like this exist everywhere, transcend cultural boundaries. In the game I wanted to capture the sense of the extraordinary that comes from these anxieties and fears that are universal, to make it tangible by using Tokyo as a stage ”.
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The first source of inspiration for Kimura it was precisely her city, the same as her childhood memories. During the brainstorming phase, he often walked around the metropolis, observing its alleys, the tops of the buildings, the hidden sanctuaries, and imagined: “As a child I liked books on folklore and the occult, the manga Ge ge ge no kitaro di Shigeru Mizuki, and I listened to my grandparents telling tales and stories of the Yokai, supernatural creatures of Japanese mythology. Even today, while walking around the city, if I hear a sudden splash of water coming out of nowhere, I wonder if it could be nearby. a Kappa, that is, a son-of-the-river. This kind of suggestions are the basis of my inspiration “.
The Tokyo of Ghostwire is of great visual impact, its pop system, the cold lights, the mega-screens that illuminate an impending danger inhabited by strange beings: “The concept is always represent the extraordinary in the ordinary, we also used it in drawing Visitors and Yokai. From a distance they look similar to normal people, but approaching them they look different and they are. In the world of Ghostwire, however, they are not all enemies, for example there are cats wearing kimonos, Nekomata, who are there to help the gamer. Hope players can enjoy one stroll through our supernatural Tokyo and feel their heart beating a little faster, feel the sense of wonder, ”Kimura told us again.
Although Tango Gameworks’ latest effort has traits related to surrealism, the game director has never shared his passion for that artistic movement with the development team, because “I wanted to avoid that the game’s design points too much towards images that have already been seen or are easily recognizable. I wanted the team to come up with a nice one fusion of different styles. A right harmony with strange dissonances “.
Ghostwire Tokyo is an action-adventure video game, a story of ghosts and ghosts, as Kimura told us: “The shape of the ghost, the details of its story, reside in the narrator and when these stories are transmitted, they reflect on past experiences and the state of mind of the listener. Thus ghosts, supernatural phenomena, Yokai and so on, are beings rendered in their entirety by the listener, because even in this world dominated by technology, ghost stories continue to fascinate. In the same vein we can look at video games, which exist as data but are made whole by the player who plays them “.
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In the game you also encounter one Shiromukua character who wears the traditional white kimono of the brides: she stands, face down, it is not known why she appeared in Tokyo, but as Kimura explained well, it will be the players who will give her a story that, like others, will become part of the experience of the world of Ghostwire.
The title, developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda, is in exclusive to PlayStation 5 and computers and available from March 25th.