In the gaming industry, there are very few individuals that could be considered household names. The vast majority of these famous figures come from the dawn of gaming, with their games being some of the most influential titles of all time.Shinji Mikamiis one such name. Born in 1965, Shinji Mikami began his career in the gaming industry in 1990 when he joined Capcom to work on a number of movie tie-in games likeWho Framed Roger Rabbit?andDisney’s Aladdin. Very soon, Shinji Mikami found himself directing one of the influential video games of all time.
While Shinji Mikami is best known for his role as the originalResident Evil’s director, Mikami’s career in the gaming industry reaches far beyond the revolutionary survival horror franchise. And with the news thatShinji Mikami is leaving his position as executive producer of Tango Gameworks, a company that he founded over 12 years ago, it’s the perfect time to look back on this visionary’s illustrious career.
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A Brief History of Shinji Mikami’s Greatest Games
While Shinji Mikami got his start at Capcom in 1990, it would take a few more years before he’d be allowed to head up his own passion project. Originally intended to be a remake of Capcom’s horror house titleSweet Home, Shinji Mikami’s directorial debut was the now-iconicResident Evil. Production officially began in 1993, and over the course of development, Shinji Mikami pushed for the game to be a wholly original project, one heavily inspired by the recently releasedAlone in the Dark. Of course,Resident Evilbecame an immediate hit, and essentially popularized the survival horror genre for modern audiences.
Beginning just one month after the release ofResident Evil,Resident Evil 2entered development, with Shinji Mikami acting as a producer. Mikami took a big step back from the sequel, with Hideki Kamiya leading the project. Mikami had a bit more of a hands-on role with the third game,Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, apparently contributing heavily to development despite his role as a producer. Mikami is even credited with being one of the developers who came up with the idea of the Nemesis altogether. Skipping forward a little, Shinji Mikami returned totheResident Evilfranchisein full force forResident Evil 4, where he was not only the game’s director but also one of its writers.
During the development ofResident Evil’s sequels, Shinji Mikami began working on another passion project, heavily inspired by his work on the survival horror series. Designed to be the spiritual successor toResident Evil, Shinji Mikami acted as the director onDino Crisis, a1999 PS1 horror classicthat borrows a lot from movies likeAliensandJurassic Park. During his time at Capcom, Shinji Mikami worked as the executive producer on bothDino Crisis 2and3.
Though most of Mikami’s best-known works are from his time at Capcom, he didn’t actually spend too long at the company, leaving after the release of the underrated brawlerGod Handin 2006. From here, Mikami created his own private development studio, Straight Story, which went on to produce the incredibly unique action gameVanquishwith PlatinumGames. In 2010, Shinji Mikami founded another development studio, Tango Gameworks, which is best known fortheEvil Withinseries, two survival horror games that wore theirResident Evilinspirations on their sleeves. Tango Gameworks' most recent title, andShinji Mikami’s last at the studio, wasHi-Fi Rush, a surprisingly great rhythm-based action game that was shadow-dropped just over a month ago.
