Shinji Mikami appears ready to return to game development following the expiration of a non-compete clause.
“Now that I’ve broken the spell of non-competition on myself, I guess I should get to work,” hetweetedon Thursday.
It was confirmed in February thatMikami was leaving Tango Gameworks, the studio behind The Evil Within,Ghostwire: TokyoandHi-Fi Rush, which he founded in 2010 before selling it toBethesda.
Mikami is best known for his time atCapcom, where he directed the firstResident Evil, its 2002GameCuberemake andResident Evil 4, among other titles.
He also directed Vanquish forPlatinumGamesand produced Shadows of the Damned forGrasshopper Manufacture.
In 2020, Mikami stated thathe wanted to direct one more video game projectbefore he retires, adding that he had no shortage of ideas and they weren’t limited to the horror genre.
Last year Mikamireiterated this goalin a discussion withResident Evil VillageproducerJun Takeuchi, in which he said: “Something else I want to do is make my own game. To make another game. Right now we’re slowly preparing for that, and to make it work I get to give all the annoying jobs to someone else to handle.”
Mikami’s Twitter timeline shows he has been busy travelling during his time off, although he’s also made time for a few games.
Further reading
Over the last six months he’s completedGhost of Tsushima(“It was a lot of fun, the last part was great”), started playingThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and finished the Resident Evil 4 remake (“I enjoyed it very much”).
Grasshopper founderGoichi Sudarecently said he’d like to make a new Shadows of the Damned game,ideally with Mikami’s involvement.
