Shinji Mikami wants to make smaller games (Picture: Shinji Mikami)
Shinji Mikami has explained the reasons behind his decision to leave Tango Gameworks, as rumours circulate about a potential delay to Resident Evil 9.
After setting up the studio back in 2010, Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami announced he was leaving Tango Gameworks in February last year.
Mikami is best known for his time at Capcom as director on the original Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Resident Evil 4. During his time at Tango Gameworks he directed 2014’s The Evil Within, which went on to spawn a sequel without his involvement.
Following his departure from Tango, Mikami set up another studio named KAMUY earlier this year. While it was unclear what it was at the time, Mikami has now explained his intention behind the new studio.
Speaking in an interview with Japanese YouTube channel Byking, Mikami said he had planned to leave Tango Gameworks eight years before he actually did, but that he felt a responsibility to stay due to ongoing projects.
As translated by Automaton, Mikami said he wanted to leave so he could create an environment which would allow young game creators to have more frequent opportunities, with shorter lifecycles between projects.
Along with the chance to make smaller games, which he believes there’s an audience for, Mikami also cites his personal wish to separate himself from the survival horror genre that he’s become to be associated with. In other words, don’t expect any horror games from his new studio KAMUY.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mikami clarified that he was only Tango’s CEO at the outset. ‘I had only been CEO for six months,’ he said. ‘I think a lot of people were under the impression that I was the representative, but I was very close to a rank-and-file employee.
‘I had producer attached to my name, but I wasn’t an executive or anything of the sort.’
His desire to move away from survival horror might imply Tango Gameworks is working on a horror title of sorts, with the most likely possibility being The Evil Within 3, which has been hinted at multiple times.
The chance to see what a veteran developer can create on a smaller scale, with new talent, is an exciting prospect though – and one that might be indicative of where the industry is going as as a whole, as budgets balloon to an unsustainable degree.
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As for the future of Resident Evil, the next mainline instalment, Resident Evil 9, might be more ambitious than expected. While previous rumours suggested it would be open world, renowned leaker Dusk Golem has claimed the title ‘might’ve been internally delayed’ for ‘one reason or another’.
They suggest that ‘another RE [Resident Evil] game may end up being announced and released first’ before Resident Evil 9, but adds that this is not concrete at this point. If true though, it might mean we see another remake beforehand.
The same leaker previously claimed Capcom was working on five Resident Evil games, including Resident Evil 9, earlier this year – so the company would seem to have plenty of options to choose from.
Capcom will also be in no rush with the game, as they recently announced higher than expected profits. With a new Monster Hunter also on the way they’re in one of their strongest positions for many years and can afford to spend the time to get Resident Evil 9 right.
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