Hideki Kamiya | |
|---|---|
神谷 英樹 | |
 Kamiya in 2014 | |
| Born | (1970-12-19)December 19, 1970 (age 55) Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan |
| Alma mater | Kyorin University |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Employer(s) | Capcom (1994–2006) Clover Studio (2004–2006) PlatinumGames (2006–2023) Clovers (2023–present) |
| Known for | |
Hideki Kamiya (神谷 英樹,Kamiya Hideki; born December 19, 1970) is a Japanesevideo game designer anddirector. He began his career in 1994 withCapcom, where he directedResident Evil 2 (1998),Devil May Cry (2001),Viewtiful Joe (2003), andŌkami (2006). From 2004 to 2006, he worked for the Capcom subsidiaryClover Studio.
After leaving Capcom, Kamiya and other former staff members foundedPlatinumGames in 2006. Kamiya also served as vice president from 2017 to 2023. His projects with PlatinumGames includeBayonetta (2009) andThe Wonderful 101 (2013).
In December 2024, it was announced he had formed an independent studio named Clovers Inc., with their first project being a sequel toŌkami published by Capcom.
He was named one of the top 100 game creators of all-time byIGN in 2009.[1]
Kamiya was born in 1970 in Matsumoto inNagano Prefecture. At a young age, he was already a fan of video games thanks to a neighbor who often invited him to play with hisEpoch Cassette Vision console. Gaming appealed to Kamiya mainly due to the sounds it produced. During his early years of junior school he got his own first console,Nintendo'sFamicom. The first game he bought wasNuts & Milk.[2] In high school, Kamiya bought aNEC PC-8801 to study programming, but ended up playing video games every day.[3]
The first software he purchased for his PC-8801 MA computer wasHydlide 3: The Space Memories. He also lovedmonster movies such asGodzilla andUltraman as a child.[4]
As a game designer, Kamiya stated he has been most inspired by the gamesThe Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past andGradius. His favorite action game is the originalCastlevania.[5] Other favorite games includeSpace Harrier,Cybernator,Punch-Out,Wonder Boy in Monster Land,Snatcher,Sorcerian, andStar Cruiser.[6]
When reading an interview from theFamily Computer Magazine that featured game creatorsShigeru Miyamoto andMasanobu Endo, Kamiya decided he would become a video game developer.[3] After graduating from college, Kamiya applied for jobs at various game developers. He was turned down bySega and had an application accepted byNamco. However, Namco wanted him to be an artist rather than a game designer.[7]
Kamiya joined Capcom as a designer in 1994. His early works included planner of the originalResident Evil. The development ofResident Evil 2 was carried out by a 40- to 50-person group that would later be part ofCapcom Production Studio 4.[8][9] The game was directed by Kamiya, who led the team, which was composed of newer Capcom employees and over half of the staff from the originalResident Evil.[8][10][11] In the initial stages of development, producerShinji Mikami often had creative disagreements with Kamiya, and tried to influence the team with his own direction. He eventually stepped back to an overseeing role as producer, and only demanded to be shown the current build once a month.[11]
To fulfill Capcom's sales plan of two million copies, director Kamiya tried to attract new customers with a more ostentatious andHollywood-like story presentation.[12] AsYoshiki Okamoto did not want to simply enforce the new direction, he had regular series writerNoboru Sugimura discuss the plot revisions with Mikami and the development staff.[11] The planners redesigned the game from the ground up to fit the changes, and the programmers and other remaining members of the team were sent to work onResident Evil Director's Cut, which was shipped with a playable preview disc of the newResident Evil 2 version in order to promote the sequel and to apologize to the players for its belated release.[8][13]
Kamiya was later the director ofDevil May Cry, which started out as the earliest incarnation ofResident Evil 4.[14] Initially developed for the PlayStation 2, the game wasdirected by Hideki Kamiya after producerShinji Mikami requested that he create a new entry in theResident Evil series.[15] Around the turn of the millennium,[16] Sugimura[17] created a scenario for the title, based on Kamiya's idea to make a very cool and stylizedaction game.[18] The story was based on unraveling the mystery surrounding the body of protagonist Tony,[19] an invincible man with skills and an intellect exceeding that of normal people, his superhuman abilities explained with biotechnology.[16] As Kamiya felt the playable character did not look brave and heroic enough in battles from a fixed angle, he decided to drop the prerendered backgrounds from previousResident Evil installments and instead opted for adynamic camera system.[15] This new direction required the team to make a trip to Europe where they spent eleven days in theUnited Kingdom andSpain photographing things likeGothic statues, bricks, and stone pavements for use intextures.[20][21] Though the developers tried to make the "coolness" theme fit into the world ofResident Evil, Mikami felt it strayed too far from the series' survival horror roots and gradually convinced all of the staff members to make the game independent from it.[22] Kamiya eventually rewrote the story to be set in a world full of demons and changed the hero's name to "Dante".[16] The cast of characters remained largely identical to that in Sugimura's scenario,[23] although appearances of the hero's mother and father were written out of the story.[24][25] The game's new title was revealed asDevil May Cry in November 2000.[26]
The game was developed by Team Little Devils, a group of staff members withinCapcom Production Studio 4.[27][28] Some of the major gameplay elements were partially inspired by a bug found inOnimusha: Warlords. During a test-play, Kamiya discovered that enemies could be kept in the air by slashing them repeatedly, which led to the inclusion of juggles by gunfire and sword strikes inDevil May Cry.[29] According to the director,Devil May Cry was designed from the ground up around Dante's acrobatics and combat abilities.[30] The decision was made late in the development process to change the game to a more mission-based advancement, instead of the more open-ended structure of theResident Evil games.[31]Devil May Cry's difficulty was intentional, according to Kamiya, who called it his "challenge to those who played light, casual games."[32]
Despite the success of the originalDevil May Cry, the sequel was not created by Hideki Kamiya or Team Little Devils.[33][34] The first notice Kamiya's team was given about any sort of sequel occurred during localization ofDevil May Cry inNorth America andEurope, a move which greatly surprised Kamiya. Instead the project was handed over to Capcom Dev Studio 2.[35] Since the game's release, Kamiya has expressed disappointment that he was not called on by his superiors at Capcom to directDevil May Cry 2.[36]
Although Kamiya did not direct the third game,Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, he still advised writerBingo Morihashi in the characterization of the title character as well as his design. He also gave Morihashi freedom in terms of the story's retcons regarding Vergil's history.[37]
Kamiya stated on Twitter that he was interested in remaking the originalDevil May Cry game, although he was not employed by Capcom at the time.[38]
Kamiya directed the originalViewtiful Joe. The game was conceived as a "staff-focused project" aimed at increasing the skill of its creators, specifically director Kamiya.[39] Kamiya provides the voice for Six Machine in the game.[40]
In 2006, Kamiya worked as the director forŌkami.Ōkami resulted from the combined ideas of Clover Studio.[41] The game was originally built around "depict[ing] a lot of nature", but had no central concept or theme, according to Kamiya, who served as the game's director.[42] Kamiya eventually created a minute-long demonstration movie showing a wolf running about a forest, with flowers blossoming in its wake, but still lacked any gameplay. Kamiya and other members of the team introduced ideas around the nature aspect and eventually led to the game's initial prototype, which Kamiya admitted was "incredibly boring to play".[42] Eventually, they settled onto the gameplay found in the final product, With the core feature of allowing the player to pause the gameplay at any time to draw on the landscape to affect the world around them.[42]
The gameplay style is a mix of action, platform, and puzzle gaming genres, and has been noted by many reviewers to have numerous similarities in overall gameplay style toThe Legend of Zelda series,[43] an inspiration that director Hideki Kamiya, aZelda fan, has admitted has influenced his general game design.[44]
Clover Studio was closed by Capcom in late 2006.[45]
PlatinumGames was founded under the name Seeds, Inc. on August 1, 2006, byShinji Mikami,Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya.[45][46]
In May 2008, the company, now renamed to PlatinumGames, announced a four-game deal with publisherSega.[47] The games involved in the development and publishing deal includedBayonetta, a "stylish action game" for thePlayStation 3 andXbox 360 directed by Kamiya. The game was considered as the successor ofDevil May Cry with Kamiya having used its latest sequelDevil May Cry 4 as part of his research.[48] First announced at E3 2012, Kamiya directedThe Wonderful 101 for theWii U, which was released in September 2013. He also wrote the story toBayonetta 2,[49] released on the Wii U in October 2014.
Kamiya has stated he is interested in making a newStar Fox game, and due to a lot of fans asking him onTwitter repeatedly, he was encouraged to submit ideas to Nintendo without success. Eventually, PlatinumGames did end up working with Nintendo on the next installment of theStar Fox series, entitledStar Fox Zero, and its companion gameStar Fox Guard, both of which were released in April 2016.[50] Kamiya was working onScalebound, a new game forMicrosoft Studios until its cancellation in January 2017.[51][52]
In October 2022, Hellena Taylor, the voice actress for the titularBayonetta in the first twoBayonetta titles, revealed that she decided not to voice Bayonetta inBayonetta 3, alleging that PlatinumGames offered her $4,000 for the role, an amount she found "insulting" and instead asked fans to boycott the video game.[53] Days later, Bloomberg and VGC verified sources that allege that Taylor was initially offered a larger sum for the main role, and that the $4000 was a final offer from Kamiya for a cameo role near the end of development.[54][55] Kamiya responded to Taylor's claims with a tweet reading "Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That's what all I can tell now." before temporarily deactivating his Twitter account.[56][57][58]
In a December 2024 interview, Kamiya said that around April 2023, he and Inaba began to have disagreements regarding the company, and by July 2023, Kamiya found it impossible to work with Inaba and made plans to leave PlatinumGames.[59] Kamiya said in a later interview that he felt that the direction that PlatinumGames was going in terms of game development was away from celebrating a creator's individuality, a factor that was emphasized during his time with Capcom Team 4.[60] His departure was announced publicly in September 2023, and formally left PlatinumGames on October 12, 2023.[61][62]
During the few months between July and October 2023, Kamiya was approached by Kento Koyama, another PlatinumGames employee that had worked onProject G.G. Koyama suggested that Kamiya found his own studio to create the games he wanted. As others in the studio also sympathized with Kamiya's decision to leave, Kamiya recognized the value of Koyama's suggestion. Koyama left PlatinumGames in July to establish Clovers, acting as president and CEO, with Kamiya joining after his own departure. The name was a play on the former Clover Studio name. At this point, Kamiya was under a one-year non-compete agreement prevent him from working on any games, and kept his involvement with Clovers low-key. Several other PlatinumGames staff followed to join Clovers, with about 25 staff at its Tokyo and Osaka offices by December 2024.[63] Funding for Clovers was provided by Kamiya and Koyama without any outside investors, and Kamiya planned to only take investment funds to finance specific games rather than the studio to maintain its independence.[64]
Initial plans at Clovers was to develop new IP, but they soon realized the potential to develop a newOkami game, a desire that Kamiya had expressed during his time at PlatinumGames. They had discussions with Capcom to secure the opportunity, and once Kamiya's non-compete was completed, began starting to ramp up staffing at Clovers.[63] TheOkami sequel was publicly announced atThe Game Awards 2024 in December 2024, with pre-production starting near that time.[65] Kamiya said in 2025 that while the Clovers studio was solely focused on theOkami sequel, he hoped they could expand into more projects for Capcom and other publishers.[66]
Those who have met Kamiya describe him as having a soft-spoken, friendly personality, but he has earned a contrasting reputation among some onTwitter for referring to non-Japanese-speaking fans using highly offensive language (eg, "brainless insects"), and blocking large numbers of them for tweeting him in any language other than Japanese, including users responding in English to tweets he made exclusively in English.[67] Kamiya's blocking has become an inside joke with fans, to the point that getting blocked or unblocked became a stretch reward forThe Wonderful 101: RemasteredKickstarter.[68][69]
| Year | Game | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Resident Evil | System planner |
| Arthur to Astaroth no Nazomakaimura: Incredible Toons | Planner | |
| 1998 | Resident Evil 2 | Director |
| 2001 | Devil May Cry | Director, story |
| 2002 | Resident Evil Zero | Original game design |
| 2003 | Viewtiful Joe | Director |
| 2004 | Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Trials and Tribulations | Japanese voice ofGodot |
| Viewtiful Joe 2 | Story | |
| 2005 | Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble! | |
| 2006 | Ōkami | Director, story |
| 2009 | Bayonetta | |
| 2013 | The Wonderful 101 | |
| 2014 | Bayonetta 2 | Supervisor, story |
| 2019 | Astral Chain | Supervisor |
| 2021 | World of Demons | |
| 2022 | Sol Cresta[70][71] | Creative director, story |
| Bayonetta 3[72] | Supervising director, scenario | |
| 2023 | Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon | Supervising director, original story, chief scenario writer |
| TBA | Project G.G. | Original director |
| TBA | UntitledŌkami sequel[73] | Director |
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Games directed byHideki Kamiya | |
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