Undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the history of Japanese developers, Shinji Mikami worked on the very first title in the Resident Evil franchise. He now appears to be back again in the industry and working on an original AAA game for consoles.
While the developer is mainly known for his contributions at Capcom, where he served as the director on the original Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and even Resident Evil 4, Mikami left the studio in 2006 and founded Tango Gameworks in 2010, where he delivered massive hits like The Evil Within and also produced Hi-Fi Rush.
After leaving Tango Gameworks in 2023, the developers remained mysterious until recently, when their new studio, Unbound Games, began posting jobs online. Shinji Mikami is the studio’s representative director, and they currently have around 50 employees.
As per the job listing, the studio is currently working on a “high-end” original IP being developed on Unreal Engine 5 for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC. The recruitment information on the official website states:
We are a newly established, fully independent company, developing high-end consumer games, creating original AAA titles.
The studio has veteran developers from the industry who have previously worked on titles such as Devil May Cry, Silent Hill, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Dead Rising, and more. Another popular name working for the studio is Masato Kimura, who’s previously worked with Mikami on titles like Hi-Fi Rush, Devil May Cry and others.
Recently, Mikami was asked about the studio’s debut project on the website, where they replied:
‘I can’t give away any details yet, but it’s a AAA title for high-end consumers.
While he admits it will be hard to deliver the same quality titles as overseas AAA developers, given the cost of hundreds of billions of yen and hundreds of developers working for several years, the team is still motivated to deliver a AAA-quality game with AA content.
There are many job listings posted on the website, as the studio aims to expand to around 150 employees in the near future. It is still unknown whether Shinji Mikami is directing this game, as he previously said he wanted to work on one more game before retiring. However, he also wanted to get away from his reputation for mostly developing horror games, so there’s still a wait to learn more about this title’s development and whether it is horror, or another genre altogether.
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