Every gamer knows Shinji Mikami as a household name, the genius behind the Resident Evil series that has become one of Capcom’s biggest and most successful franchises. While Mikami has moved on to different things, most notably his upcoming Ghostwire, he did answer a few questions for IGN just today.
While Mikami has always been best-known for Resident Evil, he has also been responsible for developing a number of other non-Resident Evil games that haven’t gotten nearly as much traction or seen as much success. These games include God Hand, Vanquish, and PN.0.3, along with Shadows of the Damned, and more.
The lack of success for these games somewhat gave Mikami the idea that he was trapped by his own success, mainly that everyone expected him to continue making Resident Evil games, especially when Resident Evil 4 has earned a coveted spot as one of the greatest games ever made.
Shinji Mikami also said that he believes what keeps him going in game development is that everyone is really looking forward to the games he makes. His new foray into survival horror, The Evil Within, took a bit to get going, but its sequel managed to get very positive reviews after a more divisive reception with the original.
Mikami’s studio Tango Gameworks is currently working on Ghostwire: Tokyo, a new survival horror experience that plays into a mixture of modern and cultural horror. While we don’t know much about it other than the trailer we got last year at E3, with Shinji Mikami at the helm, hopefully it’s a great game.
While Shinji Mikami might never be able to escape the influence of Resident Evil, considering he’s been responsible for some of the scarier games in the franchise, and his subsequent horror games with Tango have also been disturbing and scary in their own right, hopefully Ghostwire can really cement him being fully separated from Resident Evil.
