Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami stayed at Tango Gameworks 8 years longer than he wanted to out of responsibility for the studio's ongoing games

The creator of the Resident Evil series and founder of Tango Gameworks, Shinji Mikami, has given more insight into why he chose to leave the studio he set up, and it turns out that he actually wanted to do it far sooner than he did.

Mikami founded Tango Gameworks – the studio behind The Evil Within games as well as Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush – back in 2010, but departed last year. However, according to a recent interview on the Byking YouTube channel (translated by Automaton), he wanted to leave eight years before that, but stayed because he felt responsibility towards the projects at the studio that were already underway. Based on the timing of his actual departure, it seems he might have begun considering this sometime after the release of The Evil Within. 

Now, Mikami has started up a new company, called Kamuy. But what prompted him to leave Tango Gameworks in the first place? Apparently, he wanted to give younger game developers somewhere they could have more chances to gain experience in the industry – for example, a place with shorter development cycles between new games, in theory allowing more to be developed in a shorter period of time. This ties into his belief that there are people out there who are keen to see unique games created on a smaller scale. 

That's not all though, as Mikami is also hoping to break away from the survival horror genre. This is quite a surprise given how much success he's had with it in the past, having worked on the aforementioned Resident Evil and The Evil Within series, as well as Dino Crisis. Regardless, it certainly doesn't sound like we can expect more spooky titles from him any time soon, but it'll be fascinating to see what he works on next.

If you love Resident Evil, be sure to check out our ranking of the top 10 best Resident Evil games of all time.