Aya Kyogoku

Kyogoku began her career in 2000 at the video game company Atlus before joining Nintendo in September 2003.^[1] While at Atlus, she served as an Assistant Planner for the Dreamcast title deSPIRIA and Assistant Director for the PlayStation 2 title Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land before moving to Nintendo.^[3][4] At Nintendo, Kyogoku worked as a scriptwriter on The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, work for which she won a Game Developers Choice Award.^[1][5]

In 2008, she worked as a sequence director on Animal Crossing: City Folk, where she was responsible for script writing and all elements relating to non-player character behavior and dialogue.^[1][6] Kyogoku and Isao Moro jointly served as directors of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, the 2012 sequel to City Folk.^[7] Following the mixed critical and commercial performance of City Folk, Kyogoku sought to "get back to the series' roots" in New Leaf.^[8] In 2015, Kyogoku produced the Animal Crossing spin-off title Happy Home Designer.^[9] In 2019, she was named as Manager of Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) Production Group No. 5, a position previously held by Hisashi Nogami before he was promoted at Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EPD.^[1][10] She directed Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the fifth main series title in the Animal Crossing series, in 2020.^[1] Following the extensive critical and commercial success of New Horizons, Kyogoku has received media attention from both video-game and non-video-game media outlets alike, being dubbed “Nintendo’s Rising Star and Secret Weapon.”^[11][12]

Serving as the director of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Kyogoku became the first woman to direct a video game at Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD).^[1][10] After noting that she was frequently the only woman on development teams, Kyogoku and New Leaf producer Katsuya Eguchi hired a team that was half female; Kyogoku also encouraged all individuals on the development team to contribute ideas for the game, regardless of their role on the project.^[13][14] Kyogoku credits the diversity of the team for New Leaf's critical and commercial success,^[1][14] stating that "when you are trying to create something that will appeal to many types of people, I have experienced how beneficial it is to have diversity on your team"^[8] and “it is very exciting to be able to have different types of people on the development team.”^[15] When asked for a message to women who would like to work in the game industry during a Nintendo Developer Chat, Kyogoku responded, “if you want to, please join! I’ll be so happy if we can work together.”^[15]

Furthermore, Kyogoku has been praised for broadening the series' appeal "beyond the typical teenage-male demographic.”^[11] Notably, Animal Crossing: New Horizons expanded visibility and representation through increased character customization options, including skin tone options and gender-neutral hairstyles that the player can switch between freely. Kyogoku explained that these options are "not just about gender," but rather the sentiment that "society is shifting to valuing a lot of people's different identities."^[12] She explained further that “we basically wanted to create a game where users didn't really have to think about gender or if they wanted to think about gender, they're also able to."^[12]