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KEMURI Gameplay Shows A Stylish Yokai Action Game From UNSEEN
Ikumi Nakamura’s return to the spotlight has been one of the more interesting independent studio stories in recent years. After her memorable E3 2019 appearance during the reveal of GhostWire: Tokyo, Nakamura quickly became one of the industry’s most recognisable creative voices.
She is no longer with Tango Gameworks, but her next chapter is now taking clearer shape through UNSEEN, the Tokyo-based studio she founded. During the latest State of Play, UNSEEN finally revealed the first gameplay footage for KEMURI, its original yokai action game coming to PlayStation 5 in 2027.
The reveal gives players their clearest look yet at a project that blends supernatural action, urban exploration, folklore, fashion, and online co-op. For a game that has spent years surrounded by mystery, KEMURI now looks much easier to understand, while still holding onto the strange energy that made its first teaser so memorable.
KEMURI City Blends Life, Death And The Paranormal
Set in Kemuri City, a chaotic vertical city where the boundary between life and death has begun to blur, the world is filled with rooftops, back alleys, underground ruins, paranormal anomalies, and hidden spaces where yokai move beneath the surface of everyday life.
UNSEEN describes the city as a place closest to the afterlife, where people may encounter something they once lost again. That gives the setting a more emotional pull than a simple monster-hunting playground, with its yokai born from lingering human emotions, memories, and thoughts.
The result is a city that feels energetic, fashionable, eerie, and melancholy all at once. It is not just a supernatural battleground. It is a place where grief, memory, folklore, and modern city life appear to overlap.
Players Become Yokai Hunters
Players take on the role of Yokai Hunters, tracking supernatural beings, confronting them, and forming contracts that allow them to use their powers in battle.
Those contracts feed into one of KEMURI’s central systems, Possession Apparel. Rather than simply giving players new abilities, contracted yokai can change a hunter’s appearance, combat style, and movement through the city. That gives the game’s fashion-forward character design a clear gameplay purpose.
Combat also appears flexible. Some hunters can lean into close-range attacks, while others use ranged options, prayers, talismans, or supernatural abilities. The early footage suggests that KEMURI is aiming for speed, style, and mobility, with players moving quickly through the city while chaining yokai powers in combat.
Foxwindow Lets Players See The Unseen
One of KEMURI‘s most distinctive ideas is Foxwindow, a power that lets players reveal hidden fractures between the human world and yokai realms. By forming a hand gesture and looking through the space between their fingers, Yokai Hunters can see what ordinary people cannot. In gameplay terms, Foxwindow appears to act as both an exploration tool and a bridge into supernatural spaces scattered across the city.
UNSEEN says these yokai realms are not only frightening, but also nostalgic, mysterious, and beautiful. KEMURI is not presenting the paranormal only as something hostile; it is also treating it as strange, emotional, and connected to the things people carry with them.
KEMURI Supports Solo Play And Online Co-Op
KEMURI can be played alone, but it also supports online co-op for up to three players. UNSEEN describes co-op as a setup where players can discover, guide, and strike together, with each hunter potentially seeing the same world in slightly different ways.
That could become one of the game’s more intriguing features if it affects exploration and encounters in meaningful ways. KEMURI already has a strong visual identity, but its long-term appeal will likely depend on how well its yokai contracts, movement, combat, and co-op systems work together.
