Shinji Mikami | |
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三上 真司 | |
 Mikami in 2013 | |
| Born | (1965-08-11)August 11, 1965 (age 60)[1] |
| Alma mater | Doshisha University |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1990–present |
| Employers |
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| Known for | |
Shinji Mikami (三上 真司,Mikami Shinji; born August 11, 1965) is a Japanesevideo game designer, director, andproducer. Starting his career atCapcom in 1990, he has worked on many of the company's most successful games. He directed thefirst installment of theResident Evil series in 1996 and thefirst installment of theDino Crisis series in 1999, bothsurvival horror games. He returned toResident Evil to direct theremake of the first game in 2002 and the survival horrorthird-person shooterResident Evil 4 in 2005. In 2006, he directed his final Capcom gameGod Hand, abeat 'em up action game. Mikami foundedPlatinumGames in 2006 and directed the third-person shooterVanquish in 2010. That same year, he left the studio and founded a new studioTango Gameworks and directed the survival horror gameThe Evil Within in 2014. He has also served the roles of producer and executive producer for many games. In 2023, he left the studio and founded a new studio KAMUY in 2024.
In 2009, he was chosen byIGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.[3]
Mikami grew up in theYamaguchi Prefecture ofHonshū island. His father, who had to enter the workforce early and drop out of high school to support his family, beat him almost daily. Beyond family life, his was a normal childhood, without video games but full of outdoor play: "Back in those days, kids had to be somewhat creative in coming up with games to play, because there wasn't that much else to occupy your free time".[4] His dream career was to be aFormula One driver.[5] In his adolescence Mikami became “obsessed” with horror films, such asThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre andThe Evil Dead. Another hobby was the study of karate and kendo.[6] After failing entrance exams two years straight, Mikami enrolled into and graduated fromDoshisha University,[4] where he majored in the study of merchandise.[6]
Although Mikami playedarcade video games often, his entrance into the industry came by coincidence:
"A friend of mine had found a flyer advertising some kind of job fair-slash-buffet partyCapcom was holding at theHilton and he gave it to me because he knew I liked games. I went mainly because I wanted to eat at the Hilton for free, but once I started talking to Capcom people, really getting in depth about the work they do, I thought it sounded pretty neat. So I applied to both Capcom andNintendo, and it turned out the second round of interviews for both companies were held on the same day, and I chose Capcom. It's likely for the better because I probably never had a chance with Nintendo."[4]
His application was rejected at the screening process, then approved one week later.[6] He joined Capcom in 1990 as a junior game designer,[6] Mikami and fellow new hires were sent to a warehouse and ordered to "think hard about game design", then left unsupervised for the entire day. After a few months of just doing that, he was suddenly placed on a team and given a leadership position despite knowing nothing about game development.[7]
His first title, a quiz game for theGame Boy titledCapcom Quiz: Hatena? no Daibōken, was made in three months.[6] His three subsequent releases were all based onDisney-licensed properties:[6]Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the Game Boy, andAladdin andGoof Troop for theSuper NES.[8]Aladdin was his first hit, selling over 1.75 million units worldwide.[6][9] Mikami also worked onSuper Lap, an unreleasedF1racing game for the Game Boy that was scheduled to be released in 1992, but was canceled after eight months of development.[citation needed]
Mikami learned by observing his seniors; whenever he showed them hisgame design documents, they called his work "uninteresting" without giving any advice. He found this environment comfortable, since it engendered independence and freedom of thought. To Mikami, the art of game making was instilled in him byTokuro Fujiwara.[7]
After the release ofGoof Troop, Mikami began development in 1993 of ahorror-themedadventure game for thePlayStation set in a haunted mansion, calledResident Evil,[10] originally conceived as aremake ofSweet Home (an earlierFamicom game by Capcom based on theJapanese horrorfilm of the same name).[11]Sweet Home director Fujiwara entrusted Mikami, who was initially reluctant because he hated "being scared", with the project, because he "understood what's frightening."[12] Mikami said thatResident Evil was a response to his disappointment withZombi 2, a gory 1979 film by Italian directorLucio Fulci; Mikami was determined to make a game with none of the failings of the movie. The resulting game becameBiohazard, anaction-adventure game which combined3D polygonal characters and objects withpre-rendered backgrounds and featuredzombies (among other monsters) heavily influenced byGeorge A. Romero'sDead films.[13] The game was retitledResident Evil during its English localization under Capcom USA's suggestion and was released in Japan andNorth America on March 22, 1996, and became one of the PlayStation's first successful titles. It was the first game to be dubbed asurvival horror, a term Capcom coined to promote the game.[14] It was later ported to theSega Saturn.[15]
Resident Evil was considered the defining title for survival horror games and was responsible for popularizing the genre. Its control scheme becoming a staple of the genre, and future titles would imitate its challenge of rationing highly limited resources and items.[16] The game's commercial success is credited with helping thePlayStation become the dominantgame console,[17] and also led to a series ofResident Evil films. Mikami had creative control over the screenplay and script of the first movie being dubbed a creative consultant. They had Mikami in this position to make sure fans of the games would be happy. He then dropped out of the later movies because he believed that the movies were heading in the wrong direction. Many games have tried to copy the successful formula seen inResident Evil, and every subsequent survival horror game has arguably taken a stance in relation to it.[18]
The success ofResident Evil was shortly followed by an internal restructuring at Capcom, whose development departments were turned into a plurality of numbered divisions, and a number of game directors promoted as their leaders. The staff behindResident Evil became Capcom Production Studio 4, with Mikami appointed as its general manager, changing his focus towards being a producer. He considers the eight years spent in this position as the nadir of his career: he could not spend all his time on creative aspects and felt that he missed out on the best phase of his life.[7] In his new role, he oversaw the development ofResident Evil'ssequel,Resident Evil 2, which he intended to tap into the classic notion of horror as "the ordinary made strange," thus rather than setting the game in a creepy mansion no one would visit, he wanted to use familiar urban settings transformed by the chaos of a viral outbreak. The game sold over five million copies, proving the popularity of survival horror. Following its release in 1998, he oversaw the development ofResident Evil 3: Nemesis and also directed another survival horror titleDino Crisis,[19] both of which released in 1999.[20]
Shortly after the release ofResident Evil 3 in Japan, Studio 4's output turned towards further original properties, Mikami asexecutive producer, including the firstDevil May Cry (initially conceived as aResident Evil game).[21] In 2000, Mikami became involved as producer of a newResident Evil game,Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, a game designed from the ground up for theDreamcast. Being a more powerful console than the PlayStation, the Dreamcast allowed the team behind the game to add for the first time, 3D environments instead of the usual pre-rendered backgrounds.Resident Evil Code: Veronica was released in 2000 and went on to sell 1,140,000 units. That same year, Mikami'sDino Crisis 2 was released, selling 1,190,000 copies worldwide.[22]
In 2001, an expanded version ofCode: Veronica was released for the Dreamcast exclusively in Japan, alongside aPlayStation 2 port that was released worldwide. This version of the game, titledBiohazard - Code: Veronica Complete Edition in Japan andResident Evil - Code: Veronica X abroad, added ten minutes of new cutscenes not in the original release. The PS2 version, which initially came packaged with a trial version ofDevil May Cry, went on to sell 1,400,000 units, according to Capcom's sales data for March 2006.[23] In 2001, in what was to be one of his most controversial business decisions, Mikami formed an exclusivity agreement withNintendo in which the mainResident Evil games would be sold only for theGameCube. The GameCube would receive, in addition to ports of previous PlayStation and Dreamcast installments, three new numbered entries in the series: aremake of the originalResident Evil,Resident Evil Zero, andResident Evil 4.[24][25]Resident Evil andResident Evil Zero were both released in 2002.[26][27][28]
Theremake ofResident Evil was released in Japan on the sixth anniversary of the release of the original, on March 22, 2002. The remake was billed as the definitive version of the game, selling 490,000 copies in the US and 360,000 copies in Europe. In total,Resident Evil managed to sell 1,240,000 units during its first year of release. The remake's sales data was made public by Capcom during its Financial Review Report for 2002.[29]
On November 12, 2002,Resident Evil Zero was released. Gaming site gamefront.de reported that 138,855 copies of the game were sold on its first day of release. Capcom expectedResident Evil Zero to sell 1.42 million copies, but sold only 1.12 million.[30]
In spite ofResident Evil Zero's underwhelming sales, Mikami remained confident in his support for Nintendo and announced four exclusive titles for the GameCube under development by Production Studio 4 in addition toResident Evil 4;P.N.03,Viewtiful Joe,killer7 andDead Phoenix. This lineup became known as theCapcom Five.[31]
The first of these games to be released was the Mikami-directedP.N. 03. The game was both a commercial and critical failure,[14] receiving indifferent reviews from the press and selling below expectations. As a result, Mikami stepped down as manager of Production Studio 4, while remaining as one of the head producers within the team.[citation needed] After his failure withP.N.03, Mikami decided to concentrate instead on the creative aspects of the Capcom 5. He eventually took over directorial duties forResident Evil 4 from previous director, Hiroshi Shibata. Under his direction,Resident Evil 4 went through some substantial changes.Resident Evil 4 was released in 2005[32] and was one of the GameCube's top-selling titles, selling 1,250,000 units worldwide within a year. The game was critically praised, winning many game of the year awards.[33][34][35][36]
Resident Evil 4 is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, due to its influence in redefining at least twovideo game genres: thesurvival horror and thethird-person shooter.[37]Resident Evil 4 attempted to redefine the survival horror genre by emphasizing reflexes and precision aiming,[38] thus broadening the gameplay of the series with elements from the wider action game genre.[39] It helped redefine the third-person shooter genre by introducing a "reliance on offset camera angles that fail to obscure the action."[40] The "over the shoulder" viewpoint introduced inResident Evil 4 has now become standard in third-person shooters, including titles ranging fromGears of War toBatman: Arkham Asylum.[37] It has also become a standard “precision aim” feature foraction games in general, with examples ranging fromDead Space andGrand Theft Auto to theRatchet & Clank Future series,Uncharted,The Last of Us, andGod of War.[41]
Mikami touted the game as a GameCube exclusive. In an interview with a Japanese magazine, Mikami even said that he would "commitharakiri" if it came out on another platform.[42] This was loosely translated as Mikami claiming to "cut [his own] head" and later parodied inGod Hand, which featured a racing dog named "Mikami's Head". In a 2017 interview, he apologized forResident Evil 4 going multiplatform.[43]
After the success ofResident Evil 4, Mikami left Studio 4 and was transferred over to and originally establishedClover Studio in July 2004, which employed an all-star lineup of Capcom development talent, includingAtsushi Inaba (Steel Battalion andViewtiful Joe producer), andHideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry director). At Clover, Mikami directedGod Hand, abeat 'em up comedy game that parodies American and Japanese pop culture. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2006, and on October 10, 2006, in North America. After Clover Studio closed in 2007, Mikami joined Seeds Inc, now known asPlatinumGames, the newly formed successor of his former studio. PlatinumGames is composed of several of Mikami's former Capcom colleagues, including Hideki Kamiya (until 2023), Atsushi Inaba, Yuta Kimura, Nao Ueda, Mari Shimazaki and Masami Ueda.[44]
While working at Seeds (which would later merge with ODD to become PlatinumGames) the company was overwhelmingly understaffed, so Mikami sent his entire team to join the team led by Hideki Kamiya. As a result, he was left with no work to do besides attending meetings three times a week. For the first year or so, he was effectively stuck in awindow sitter [ja] position. He considers that period the second worst nadir of his career, though not as bad as his time spent as a producer at Capcom. The experience once again reaffirmed his love for developing games in a hands-on role.[7]
Mikami formed a private development studio called Straight Story in 2006. The name of the studio is taken fromDavid Lynch's1999 film.[6] Their works are under the PlatinumGames branding and he is a contract employee ("external board member") of PlatinumGames. He also collaborated withGrasshopper Manufacture'sGoichi Suda onShadows of the Damned using theUnreal Engine 3 and published byEA.[45] Mikami revealed that Straight Story would close once development ofVanquish was finished, to be replaced with Mikami's new studio, Tango, which had already been established.[46]
Much likeResident Evil andResident Evil 4 before it, thethird-person shooter gameVanquish, released in 2010, has proven to be an influential title foraction games.[47] It significantly improved upon thecover system, where in contrast to previous cover-based shooters, the cover inVanquish is easilydestructible, with often a single shot from a robotic enemy being enough to blast away the wall the player was hiding behind. The game also penalizes the player's ranking for the number of times they have taken cover, though its most important innovation is the power-slide mechanic that allows the player to slide into and out of cover at high speeds, or inbullet time when the player'shealth is low.[48] The game was givenGameSpot's Best Original Game Mechanic award for its rocket-slidinggame mechanic, which acts as both a defensive escape and an offensive setup, opening up new gameplay possibilities forshooter games and increasing the pace significantly.[49]Vanquish was itself inspired byTatsunoko's 1970sanime series,Casshern.[50]
A teaser website opened on March 18, 2010, titled "Mikami Project" with a countdown attached. The website changed into a job employment page, for Mikami's new studio, "Tango".[51] On October 28, 2010,ZeniMax Media, parent company of noted game publisherBethesda Softworks, announced Mikami joined ZeniMax after it acquiredTango Gameworks.[52] An April 2012Famitsu interview with Mikami revealed the codename title ofZwei for the company's survival horror gameThe Evil Within, with Mikami directing. The game was released October 2014.[53] The game is published by Bethesda on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, PS4 and Xbox One.[54][55] Mikami stated that this will be the last game he directs.[52] He stated that it will be a "true" survival horror game, "one in which the player confronts and overcomes fear",[56] because he was disappointed by recent survival horror games becoming action horror games.[57] In 2019, it was announced at E3 that his studio is working on a new project titledGhostwire: Tokyo.[58] On February 23, 2023, Bethesda Softworks announced that Mikami will leave Tango Gameworks in the coming months.[59] Mikami commented he planned to leave Tango Gameworks 8 years prior, deciding to stay at the company due to commitments with ongoing projects. As for personal reasons to leave, he comments a desire to create an environment for young developers to gain experience, and to distance himself from the survivor horror genre, which he is frequently associated with.[60]
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