Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami explains why he left Tango Gameworks and founded Kamuy 

Resident Evil director and Hi-Fi Rush producer Shinji Mikami recently commented on his departure from Tango Gameworks and the establishment of his new company Kamuy. Mikami founded Tango Gameworks in 2010 and left it last year, after having been involved in the development of titles such as The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush. 

The influential creator recently made a guest appearance on a talk show hosted by Byking, during which he was asked about what led him to leave Tango Gameworks. Mikami responded by clarifying his status within his former company, commenting, “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.” 

The same year it was founded, Tango Gameworks encountered financial difficulties and was acquired by ZeniMax Media. This acquisition changed the status of the company, as Mikami comments, “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.” The creator had apparently gone through negotiations to keep the name “Tango Gameworks” and ultimately received permission to preserve it in the form of a brand.  

Mikami further reveals that he had planned to leave Tango Gameworks for 8 years before finally doing so, but that the responsibility he felt towards ongoing projects prolonged his stay. As his main motivations for leaving, he mentions wanting to create an environment that would allow young game creators to have more frequent opportunities to gain experience, i.e. an environment with shorter cycles between new projects. At the same time, he felt that there was an audience out there for unique, smaller-scale video games, which led him to see an opportunity to link these two factors. 

The second reason Mikami mentions is his personal wish to break free from the survival horror game genre that he has come to be associated with. As existing companies have established styles and workflows, he decided to set up a company from zero to accomplish everything he’s set out to do. This is how the new company Kamuy came to be established.