Laura Shigihara

Laura Shigihara Biography

Laura Shigihara is a video game developer, composer, and singer-songwriter. She’s created audio for over 35 published video game titles (including Plants vs. Zombies, To the Moon, DELTARUNE, World of Warcraft, CS:GO, Meg’s Monster, Super Meat Boy (PS4/Vita), Finding Paradise and High School Story). Laura spent 2 years as an Audio Director under the All Play label at Electronic Arts, and created the highly acclaimed video game Rakuen which was released in 2017. She’s currently writing and directing an animated series called Farmer in the Sky, and performing live music on Twitch. Laura’s original compositions (Zombies on your Lawn, Cube Land, Everything’s Alright, From the Ground Up, etc.) have garnered over 500 million combined views on YouTube, and have been referenced everywhere from Mark Rober videos to Billie Eilish interviews in Rolling Stone to television shows like True Blood and Modern Family. Laura also enjoys working on peripheral video game projects. She co-created the ending theme song with C418 for the official Minecraft documentary, and worked with Yasunori Mitsuda on the official Square Enix 20th Anniversary Chrono Trigger/Chrono Chross album, where she wrote lyrics, co-arranged, and performed 3 songs. The album peaked at #5 on the Oricon Charts. Despite studying International Relations, Business and Computer Science at UC Berkeley, Laura decided to pursue a career in music after an unexpected detour landed her record contract offers in Japan as a singer-songwriter. Although she didn't accept for various reasons, she realized music was her calling, and that her heart was in the world of video games. In the past, Laura has also taught piano to elementary school children, and performed at venues like Yoshi’s Jazz Club and the Ginza Tokyo Apple Store. In her spare time, she enjoys baking, hiking, dancing, drawing, playing Magic: the Gathering at tea cafes, going on adventures, and of course games (some of her favorites include Chrono Trigger, Starcraft, Yoshi’s Island, Secret of Mana, the Megaman series, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Suikoden, Street Fighter 2, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and many others).