Japanese video game creator, Shinji Mikami is well-known for giving the gaming world some of the best gems in the survival horror game genre. Having worked with some of the biggest game houses in Japan, Mikami founded his own studio, Tango Gameworks in 2010.
Through Tango Gameworks he continued to deliver some of the most highly regarded survival horror games such as The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush. However, in 2023, he exited his company and founded a new venture Kamuy.
Shinji Mikami reveals wanting to leave Tango Gameworks for eight years
During a recent interview with Byking on YouTube (translated by Automaton), Mikami revealed the reasons for leaving Tango Gameworks. He revealed that the company started facing financial difficulties right from the first year of establishment in 2010. The company established in March 2010 was eventually acquired by ZeniMax Media in October of the same year.
Talking about how the acquisition brought a significant change in the status of the company, Mikami said,
“Tango Gameworks is not the name of a company, it’s the name of a department. The name of the company is ZeniMax Asia K.K.”
Mikami had seemingly gone through several negotiations to retain the name ‘Tango Gameworks‘ before finally receiving permission to keep it in the form of a brand. He further went on to make a shocking revelation during the interaction. He said that he actually planned to leave Tango Gameworks for 8 years before finally doing so in 2023.
He said although he wanted to leave long ago, he felt he had a responsibility towards ongoing projects that led to him prolonging his stay.
Shinji Mikami reveals the reason for leaving Tango Gameworks
He said that his main reason for leaving was because he wanted to create an environment that could allow young game creators to have more frequent opportunities to gain experience. This essentially means creating an environment with shorter cycles between new projects.
At the same time, he said that he felt that there was an audience out there for more unique, smaller-scale video games. This led him to believe that there was an opportunity to link these two factors.
He also revealed a second reason for leaving the company. Mikami’s second reason was his personal wish to break free from the survival horror game genre that he has been associated with for decades.
The creator also clarified his status in Tango Gameworks. He said,
“I had only been CEO for 6 months. 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.”
Besides he added that since existing companies have their established styles and workflows, he decided to start a new company from scratch to achieve everything he’s set out to do. And that’s how he established his new company, Kamuy.
Prior to Tango Gameworks, Mikami had worked for Capcom, wherein he directed the highly acclaimed and popular game under their banner, Resident Evil. His other notable works at Capcom include Dino Crisis, Steel Battalion, and Phoenix Wright among others. Besides, he has also voiced the character of Takahashi in the Japanese version of Fallout 4.
