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Clover stars had split Capcom

Publisher confirms that Viewtiful Joe producer and Devil May Cry director left the publisher earlier this year; Resident Evil creator remains as contractor.

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When Capcom announced yesterday that it was shutting down its creativity focused subsidiary Clover Studio, one of the big questions was what would become of its big-name talent. Clover counted a number of notable names on its development roster, including Atsushi Inaba (producer of Steel Battalion and Viewtiful Joe), Shinji Mikami (creator of Resident Evil), and Hideki Kamiya (director of Devil May Cry).

Today Capcom confirmed that two of those three are no longer with the company and actually hadn't been there for some months.

"Mr. Mikami is still working as a contracted producer for Capcom, but unfortunately Mr. Inaba and Mr. Kamiya are no longer with the company, having left respectively in June and July this year," a Capcom representative told GameSpot. "We obviously hoped that Mr. Inaba and Mr. Kamiya would return to work for Capcom, but both were looking for fresh challenges."

As for what happens with the rest of the Clover crew, the rep said that Capcom is "currently in discussions with remaining staff members to incorporate them into positions within the Capcom R&D teams."

[UPDATE] Until Clover's doors are closed for good in March 2007, the Capcom representative said that the remaining staff will be busy working on the PAL versions of Okami and God Hand. She also confirmed that Capcom retains all the intellectual property rights to Clover's games.

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