John Johanas, director of The Evil Within 2, is working on a game that is the opposite of horror. Shinji Mikami, CEO of Tango Gameworks, does not want to limit himself to this genre or too big titles.
In an interview with Famitsu, translated by our colleagues from VGC, Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) spoke about the desires of his studio Tango Gameworks (Ghostwire Tokyo). Two trends are emerging: getting out of the horrific scheme and developing smaller games.
The director of The Evil Within 2 breaks away from horror
Mikami-san was clear: he hopes to be able to change the image of Tango Gameworks so that it’s not tied solely to survival horror.
One day, I hope to change the image currently held by Tango Gameworks. For the moment, we are still perceived as a studio specializing only in survival horror. Of course, it’s nice to have fans who value us as a reputable studio for the development of survival horror. But we also want to be seen as a studio capable of creating a wider variety of games.. In the future, we will be releasing more and more games, starting with Ghostwire Tokyo, so please support us.
This is actually already the case with Ghostwire Tokyo, which is an action game with touches of fantasy/horror, and not survival horror. Moreover, John Johanas, game director on The Evil Within 2, is on a project that will continue in a similar way:
John Johanaswho made the DLCs for The Evil Within and The Evil Within 2, is preparing a brand new title at the antipodes of horror. It’s a very good game, so keep an eye out.
Smaller games for Tango Gameworks
Shinji Mikami also embraced the subject of big AAA games as opposed to smaller projects. For him, smaller titles make it easier to train new talent, and the advent of subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Now is also conducive to this.
Honestly, it’s quite difficult to train newcomers in a big team. I think the most effective way is to lead several development teams, of about ten people each. In recent years, commercial considerations have forced us to develop games with large teams. However, thanks to the emergence of subscription services, we feel that it is now possible to design games on a smaller scale. It is possible to gain experience in a small team, to then be involved in a big project. This way we can make even better games and projects run more smoothly.
