Despite the success of Hi-Fi Rush, Shinji Mikami is set to exit the Japanese development studio he helped to found over a decade ago.

Starting in 1996, as the director of Resident Evil, Shinji Mikami has been responsible for some of the most beloved survival horror and action games in history, including the original Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Resident Evil remake, P.N.03, Resident Evil 4, God Hand, Vanquish, and The Evil Within.

And those are just the ones he was director on, as he worked as producer or advisor on a host of other classic Capcom games, including Onimusha, Devil May Cry, Ace Attorney, Viewtiful Joe, and Killer7.

He left Capcom in 2007 and became a co-founder of PlatinumGames, which he left in 2010 to found Tango Gameworks – and now he’s left that as well.

Tango Gameworks was acquired by Bethesda shortly after it was founded and then Bethesda was acquired by Microsoft in 2021. Mikami’s departure was announced in a company email which has subsequently leaked and been verified by Bethesda as real.

‘I am writing today to let you know that studio head Shinji Mikami has decided to leave Tango Gameworks in the coming months,’ reads the email obtained by TrueAchievements.

‘Mikami-san has been a creative leader and supportive mentor to young developers at Tango for 12 years through his work on the Evil Within franchise, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and of course, Hi-Fi Rush.’

There’s no indication of what Mikami will do next or why he left but, clearly, moving companies is not as unusual for him as it is for many other Japanese developers.

The Evil Within was the only Tango game he was director on, as he took only an executive producer role on The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush. Although he always stated that his primary goal with the studio was to nurture new talent.

Although The Evil Within has its fans, until last month’s Hi-Fi Rush we hadn’t been impressed by any of the Tango games and had begun to worry about the future of the developer after the dreadful Ghostwire: Tokyo.

Hi-Fi Rush, though, has been a major success and its positive reception may well have been why Mikami chose to leave now. Although it’s unclear what Tango’s next project will be following his departure.

mail [email protected], leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter.

Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at [email protected]

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

Source: Read Full Article