Tango Gameworks Founder Shinji Mikami Finally Speaks Out About His Departure

Shinji Mikami has finally broken his silence on why he left the studio he founded, Tango Gameworks, last year. According to Mikami, it was for a variety reasons--and he actually wanted to leave much earlier than he did.

In an interview with Byking (translated by Automaton), Mikami stated he actually wanted to leave back in 2015 but only stayed because he felt responsible for fostering young talent in Tango Gameworks. This meant creating smaller games with shorter development cycles.

Mikami explained that when ZeniMax acquired Tango Gameworks all the way back in 2010, he was only the CEO for half a year. With the acquisition, Tango Gameworks became more of a department within the wider company rather than its own entity. As a result, he held a producer title, but wasn't the executive producer of anything.

He also left Tango Gameworks because he wanted to get away from his association with the horror genre. He started his career at Capcom with the Resident Evil series, and then continued with Tango Gameworks creating similar games like The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

Last month, Mikami seemingly founded another studio, named Kamuy. While not much is known about the studio, it's his chance to start from scratch again. So it's possible that his next game won't be a horror one.