Shinji Mikami has explained in a new interview why he started his own studio, and the answer is not as simple as you might think.

Mikami was once a very important figure in the creation of Resident Evil. (Today, the franchise continues without him, and today’s news includes the yet-to-be-announced Resident Evil 9). Last February, we heard that he had left Microsoft, which had already acquired Tango Gameworks, a studio known for two The Evil Within titles, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush, and was co-founded by Mikami before Bethesda bought the studio in 2010. Then, in March of this year, we heard that he had formed a new company. After all that, he showed up on a Japanese YouTube channel called Byking.

According to Automaton, Mikami talked about his career and what he wants to do in the future. The developer had been trying to leave Tango Gameworks for eight years (!), but felt a responsibility to work on the studio’s games. Why did he finally leave? He wanted to create an environment where younger developers could gain experience more often, as game development cycles would be shorter, and he believes there is an audience for more unique, smaller games.

Mikami was the director of the first Resident Evil in 1996, and he went on to direct the remake for Nintendo GameCube in 2002, and then Resident Evil 4, which was also released first for GameCube in 2005. So there’s a lot of survival horror associated with him, and Mikami knew that. Supposedly, he left Tango Gamemakers to get away from the genre. He was only CEO of the studio for six months, and although we knew him as a producer there, he never held an executive position.

In 2020, Mikami said he wanted to make one more game before he retired, and there was no shortage of ideas even then, and they weren’t all horror-related…

Source: VGC, Automaton