Shinji Mikami’s new studio, ‘Unbound’, is building a ‘AAA original IP’ for consoles and PC
The Resident Evil 4 director left Tango Gameworks in 2023
More details have emerged on game designer Shinji Mikami’s new studio, which says it’s developing an original IP for consoles and PC.
Mikami, who is best known for creating the Resident Evil series at Capcom, left Tango Gameworks, the studio behind The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush, in 2023.
Now, more details have emerged on the designer’s next venture, via a website for “Unbound Games”. According to the site, which has been live for at least a year but was only recently widely circulated, the company has been in business since May 2023, with Mikami as the representative director.
Unbound Games is said to have around 50 employees, with an aim to expand to around 150, and is described as a “fully independent company, developing high-end consumer games, creating original AAA titles”.
According to job listings, Unbound is currently developing a “high-end” original IP project powered by Unreal Engine 5 for PS5, Xbox, and PC, and it has aspirations to work on smaller-scale titles concurrently in the future.
The company’s profile page says its staff have worked on series such as Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Shadow of the Colossus, and Hi-Fi Rush.
One named employee is Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush producer, Masato Kimura, a longtime Mikami collaborator who’s worked on Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, PN.03, and more.
Speaking via an interview on the company website, Kimura was asked what he could share on Unbound’s debut title.
“I can’t give away any details yet, but it’s a AAA title for high-end consumers,” he said. “However, to be honest, it would be difficult to do the same kind of work in Japan as overseas AAA titles, which require hundreds of billions of yen and hundreds of people working for five to seven years to create.
“So, we’re aiming for AAA quality and AA content, which is why we’re creating a title that offers a rich gaming experience and allows you to be completely immersed in its world.”
Kimura reiterated that Unbound wants to eventually create titles both big and small, and described its culture of experimentation.
“Creating something new requires repeated trial and error, implementation and modification, tinkering, and sometimes even deletion,” he said. “Because we create by repeatedly building and breaking, trying this and that, things don’t always go as planned, and the content changes constantly.
“To put it in a positive way, it’s a lively production style, a flexible development style. The programmers we work with have to be willing to put up with that all the way through, so we want people who enjoy that way of creating to join us.”
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.
In 2020, Mikami stated that he wanted to direct one more video game project before he retires, adding that he had no shortage of ideas and they weren’t limited to the horror genre.
