Shinji Mikami says he “should get to work”
Japanese game designer Shinji Mikami indicated that he’d return to work soon in a post on social media. “Now that I've broken the spell of non-competition on myself,” he wrote, “I guess I should get to work.”
Mikami left Tango Gameworks earlier this year and seems to have signed a non-compete upon leaving, which kept him from taking up another position in the industry immediately. He founded Tango back in 2010 and most recently served as the company’s CEO as well as leading game development projects The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, and Ghostwire: Tokyo. He was also the executive producer of Hi-Fi Rush.
Before founding Tango Gameworks, Mikami worked at Capcom, where he was instrumental in creating the iconic Resident Evil franchise.
Mikami has been traveling through Japan for the last few months.
Shinji Mikami
No concrete plans have been communicated by Mikami as of yet, though he’s on the record as saying that he’d love to direct one more game before retiring from the business.
Mikami spent the last months traveling and playing video games – he specifically posted about Ghost of Tsushima, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – as he was waiting for his non-compete contract to run out.
Mikami’s colleague Hideki Kamiya has left Platinum Games recently and is going through quite a similar downtime, though his non-compete contract will likely last into next year.
