Following his departure from PlatinumGames and a year of self-proclaimed “unemployment,” Bayonetta creator Kamiya Hideki became the studio head and lead game designer at the brand-new game company Clovers. In a recent interview with Game*Spark, Kamiya talked about his relationship with former Capcom colleague Shinji Mikami and the ‘spirit’ he wishes to keep nurturing at Clovers.
While explaining why he named his new studio “CLOVERS” and the meaning behind it, Kamiya comments that the reference to Capcom’s now-defunct Clover Studio (where Kamiya made Okami and Viewtiful Joe) is not due to him “clinging to the past.” Instead, he explains, “If there’s anything I’m particular about, it’s Capcom Production Studio 4. Studio 4 is where my career started, and where I learned from Shinji Mikami – a person who has been absolutely indispensable to my career, both as a creator and as my superior.”
Production Studio 4 was a development division of Capcom led by Shinji Mikami. It put out acclaimed titles like Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry and Killer7 before its closure in 2005. Kamiya comments that he learned many important things from Mikami during his time at Studio 4, which he has continued to value ever since.
“Back then, we used to call what Mikami taught us the ‘spirit of the 4th.’ The reason I left PlatinumGames was because the company’s way of thinking was gradually shifting towards a modern model of game development that doesn’t place importance on the creators’ individuality.” This went against the ‘spirit’ of Studio 4, which Kamiya had adopted as his own ideal, prompting him to resign from PlatinumGames. “Even if it meant the end of my career as a creator, I couldn’t allow myself to kill my soul in order to work in an environment that I didn’t agree with,” he comments.
Kamiya says his new studio Clovers a “fresh start” for him. He notes that he doesn’t literally teach staff things by directly quoting Mikami, but that he has internalized a lot of Mikami’s teachings. “I don’t tell the staff ‘This is what Mikami-san would say’ every step of the way, but in the course of developing games up to now, I have always made decisions based on his teachings, and I have shared them with the production team.”
Kamiya concludes on the topic by commenting, “I believe that this spirit will be passed down from generation to generation, and I have incorporated it into our company name to reaffirm the things I have valued in my many years as a creator.”
As an aside, Kamiya has previously talked about Mikami’s philosophy when it comes to creating horror games.
