Tango Gameworks, you love it or leave it. Shinji Mijami and Ikumi Nakamura, long the two most famous faces of the studio, understood this well by deciding to set up their own structure separately. The student was, however, quicker than the master: the artistic director of The Evil Within founded her studio Unseen in March 2022 and has already surrounded itself with a great multicultural team to create the cooperative action game Kemuri. Shinji Mikami only announced his departure from Tango Gameworks at the beginning of 2023. A year later, we learned that the veteran of Resident Evil, Vanquish and The Evil Within had also founded his own company, Kamuy, but without More details.
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Mikami wanted to leave for a long time
After a long period of silence, Shinji Mikami took advantage of his appearance in a studio show Byking to clarify some things, starting with his true status within Tango Gameworks. “ I was only CEO for six months. I think a lot of people felt like I was the rep, but I wasn't far from being just another employee. I had the title of producer, but I wasn't an executive or anything like that “, he explains. It should be remembered that very quickly after founding Tango in March 2010, Shinji Mikami agreed to sell his studio to ZeniMax Media, which made it Bethesda's first Japanese studio in October of the same year. More precisely, Tango was renamed Tango Gameworks and was absorbed by ZeniMax Asia, the subsidiary of the group initially founded in January 2008 to distribute and promote Bethesda games in Asia.
More surprisingly, Shinji Mikami reveals that he had thought about leaving Tango Gameworks more than 8 years ago, a deadline that he only delayed out of a sense of responsibility towards the projects of a studio which, as a reminder, released The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush. Among the main motivations for his departure, the 58-year-old veteran mentions the desire to cultivate an environment that would allow young creators to gain experience through shorter production cycles. Kamuy therefore does not present itself as a studio with AAA ambitions but rather as a supplier of more modestly sized games. Shinji Mikami also wants to move away from the survival horror genre with which he has been associated for much of his career. Which Tango Gameworks did brilliantly under the direction of director John Johanas, who went from The Evil Within 2 to Hi-Fi Rush.
- Also read | Kemuri: Unseen studio says more about the creation of its cooperative action game