News Founder and studio head Shinji Mikami to leave Tango Gameworks

[mazi]

Founder and studio head Shinji Mikami to leave Tango Gameworks

Tango Gameworks' founder and CEO, Shinji Mikami, is set to leave the studio after more than 12 years with the developer.

www.trueachievements.com

In a company-wide email sent to ZeniMax employees seen by TrueAchievements and verified authentic by Bethesda, senior vice president of development at Bethesda Todd Vaughn announced that legendary game designer Shinji Mikami is leaving Xbox Game Studios' Tango Gameworks.

"I am writing today to let you know that studio head Shinji Mikami has decided to leave Tango Gameworks in the coming months," Vaughn said. "Mikami-san has been a creative leader and supportive mentor to young developers at Tango for 12 years through his work on the Evil Within franchise, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and of course, Hi-Fi Rush."

Tango Gameworks will continue work supporting Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush while Bethesda higher-ups work with Tango leadership on what comes next for the studio.

Confirming the email's veracity, Bethesda issued a statement to TA reiterating the email's message, adding, "We wish Mikami-san well in the future and are excited by what lies ahead for the talented developers at Tango."

 

[Aurc]

Wild! Wasn't expecting this news at all. Sure hope he lands somewhere nice.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

This news is kind of shocking to me. Right as Tango is really starting to break out. He's one of the GOAT game developers, so I wish him the best in whatever he chooses to do next.

 

[meatbag]

He HiFi Rushed out of there.

Best of luck to Mikami to whatever he’s planning next! Maybe he’ll become a youtuber too.

 

[neil]

He really doesn't like to settle down does he?

 

[Clov]

I wonder if he's planning to retire?

 

[Dcubed]

Not surprising in the slightest, he’s been saying for years that he wants to pass the torch at Tango and go back to the trenches, working on smaller productions at the ground level as a developer.

To anyone who has been watching Archipel’s YouTube documentary series, we saw this coming years ago.

 

[The Giant]

I wonder if he's planning to retire?

He has said recently he wants to direct one more game.

 

[Clov]

He has said recently he wants to direct one more game.

Interesting! Wonder where he'll end up doing it.

 

[TreIII]

Interesting! Wonder where he'll end up doing it.

Someone at ERA reminded me of this old segment: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/resident-evil-4-remake/

In short: If Mikami wasn't already busy with Ghostwire: Tokyo, he would've rejoined his old friend at M-Two to direct RE4's remake, himself.

Considering RE9 was rumored by Dusk Golem and some others to be a sort of "grand finale" for the series, in the sense that it would seek to tie up most of the main threads from the series' 30+ year history, it'd be awesome if he came back long enough to let that be his final directorial work.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

I was worried for a second but it seems like he's leaving on his own terms. Would love to see him direct one more game before retiring.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Tencent or Netease money got to him, I bet

 

[Xaltmas]

Clearly he's going back to Platinum for Vanquish 2.

I'm excited to see what he does next and also for the future of Tango. He's left them in a good place (to say nothing of now having Microsoft money).

 

[AngryNopon]

Would be wild if he went back to Capcom, God Hand 2 babyyyy

 

[7threst]

Hook up with your buddy Suda and create crazy stuff please

 

[Brock Reiher]

It's funny that he's leaving after Tango gets their first real hit. Don't know if he'll be able to do better anywhere else at this point.

 

[Sadist]

Surprised this didn’t happen sooner.

Still, I hope we’ll get one last big goodbye from Mikami. I know he was kind of looking at directing REmake 4, but one last Resident Evil game before rebooting the series would be amazing.

I dunno if he would work for Capcom again

 

[Lord Azrael]

Wonder why

 

[Xaltmas]

Wonder why

 

[Lord Azrael]

That explains why now instead of earlier, but I still wonder why he wanted to leave in the first place. I doubt he'll get more freedom anywhere else

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

i think it's been directly implied throughout the thread already, but this likely won't change too much at the studio.

the only game he was actively a director for was the original Evil Within, everything after it has had him in a more advisory "Executive Producer" role.

 

[Harpoon]

I can't say I'm too shocked by this, as it felt he'd like been wanting to hand the reins over for a while now. Certainly curious where he goes next.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

in case you missed it, he ended up forming a new studio called "Kamuy". which he recently discussed in an interview.

Mikami told Byking that he’d planned to leave Tango for eight years before doing so but felt a responsibility to continue working on the studio’s games.

Asked why he wanted to leave, he reportedly cited his desire to create an environment designed to give young game creators more regular experience by making games with shorter development cycles, and said he thinks there’s an audience for more unique, small-scale titles.


He also reportedly said he wanted to leave Tango to break free from the survival horror genre that made him famous.

sounds like he was pretty happy that Hi-Fi Rush was a thing.