Resident Evil creator wants to ‘break free from the survival horror genre’ with new studio

Veteran video game developer Shinji Mikami has opened up about his departure from Tango Gameworks in a new interview.

It was confirmed last February that Mikami was leaving Tango Gameworks, the studio behind The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush, which he founded in 2010 before selling it to Bethesda.

After it emerged last month that the Resident Evil creator had established a new company, Mikami appeared on Japanese YouTube channel Byking to discuss his career and what he wants to do in the future.

According to Automaton, Mikami told Byking that he’d planned to leave Tango for eight years before doing so but felt a responsibility to continue working on the studio’s games.

Asked why he wanted to leave, he reportedly cited his desire to create an environment designed to give young game creators more regular experience by making games with shorter development cycles, and said he thinks there’s an audience for more unique, small-scale titles.

Mikami is best known for his time at Capcom, where he directed the first Resident Evil, its 2002 GameCube remake and Resident Evil 4, among other titles. He also reportedly said he wanted to leave Tango to break free from the survival horror genre that made him famous.

Mikami also clarified his role within Tango Gameworks prior to his departure.

“I had only been CEO for 6 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.”

In 2020, Mikami stated that he wanted to direct one more video game project before he retired, adding that he had no shortage of ideas and they weren’t limited to the horror genre.