Shinji Mikami teases return to work after non-compete clause seemingly ends
Shinji Mikami appears ready to return to game development following the expiration of a non-compete clause.
“Now that I’ve broken the spell of non-competition on myself, I guess I should get to work,” he tweeted on Thursday.
It was confirmed in February that Mikami was leaving Tango Gameworks, the studio behind The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush, which he founded in 2010 before selling it to Bethesda.
Mikami is best known for his time at Capcom, where he directed the first Resident Evil, its 2002 GameCube remake and Resident Evil 4, among other titles.
He also directed Vanquish for PlatinumGames and produced Shadows of the Damned for Grasshopper Manufacture.
In 2020, Mikami stated that he wanted to direct one more video game project before he retires, adding that he had no shortage of ideas and they weren’t limited to the horror genre.
Last year Mikami reiterated this goal in a discussion with Resident Evil Village producer Jun Takeuchi, in which he said: “Something else I want to do is make my own game. To make another game. Right now we’re slowly preparing for that, and to make it work I get to give all the annoying jobs to someone else to handle.”
Mikami’s Twitter timeline shows he has been busy travelling during his time off, although he’s also made time for a few games.
Over the last six months he’s completed Ghost of Tsushima (“It was a lot of fun, the last part was great”), started playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and finished the Resident Evil 4 remake (“I enjoyed it very much”).
Grasshopper founder Goichi Suda recently said he’d like to make a new Shadows of the Damned game, ideally with Mikami’s involvement.
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