Shinji Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, is ready to reshape the survival-horror genre through the upcoming The Evil Within. The terrifying third-person title is the first game his company Tango Gameworks will publish through Bethesda, as well as its first next-generation game – marking this a pretty big moment for the legendary video game creator. Mikami has learned a great deal about Western development and marketing since his time with Capcom, but the differences between the East and the West were clear to him while he was still doing work at Capcom.
"Games have become big projects, requiring a lot of resources both to create and market. Games have become more risky. Japanese companies don't take those kinds of risks like Western developers do,” Mikami told Game Industry International. “In the past, what the Capcom president [Kenzo Tsuijimoto] told me was that game development is becoming more and more expensive and many Japanese publishers won't be investing $30 million or more in a game.”
The budget for The Evil Within hasn’t been disclosed, but it’s likely that Bethesda is making a pretty big bet on the project. And even though Mikami still thinks there are plenty of strong Japanese development teams, he knows the East can improve by adopting new technology.
"As for the organizational structure of companies, I think it would be good if companies would be more flexible about incorporating foreign technologies," he said.
Hopefully the talent and the budget come together to make something special on both current and next-gen platforms next year.
