PlatinumGames has revealed that Hideki Kamiya is set to leave the company shortly.
In a tweet released earlier today, PlatinumGames shared this message:
“We regret to announce that Hideki Kamiya will be leaving PlatinumGames on October 12, 2023.
We are truly grateful for his creative ideas, leadership, and contribution to the growth of PlatinumGames from our start-up to this very day.
We believe that he will continue to succeed in his future endeavors as a game creator. We are looking forward to seeing the game industry grow into a better place with him in it. We wish him all the best for the future!”
“Hideki Kamiya also went on his personal Twitter account to share his own message:
As announced on the official PlatinumGames X account, I will be leaving PlatinumGames on October 12, 2023. This came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs. and was by no means an easy decision to make.
However, I feel this outcome is for the best. I will continue to create in my Hideki Kamiya way. I hope you’ll keep your eyes peeled.”
Hideki Kamiya is one of the great veterans of Japanese gaming, and a key player in the game industry’s move into 3D gaming. His career started as a planner on the original Resident Evil, but his star rose rapidly as the director of Resident Evil 2.
Kamiya’s next major project under Capcom would be Devil May Cry, where he came up with the gun-and-slash style action gameplay. Afterwards, he would be a co-founder of Capcom internal studio Clover. In this capacity, he directed Viewtiful Joe and Okami.
Kamiya left Capcom to join Atsushi Inaba and Shinji Mikami as the founders of PlatinumGames. It was here that Kamiya created his most defining franchise to date: Bayonetta. Interestingly enough, in Kamiya’s long tenure in this company, he only directed the first Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101. His influence remains apparent in the entirety of the company’s output, even on the games he did not have a direct hand in making.
Kamiya’s departure makes it so that Atsushi Inaba is the only founder left within PlatinumGames. Kamiya was named as the director of Project GG, so that project’s future is now up in the air. For what it’s worth, PlatinumGames could make the same arrangement that Nintendo did with Masahiro Sakurai for Super Smash Bros. It could be unusual, but not impossible, for Kamiya to continue to be Project GG’s director in a freelance capacity.
Outside of that, we don’t know much of Kamiya’s future plans. Kamiya’s mentor Shinji Mikami himself made the surprise announcement that he would leave his own studio, Tango Gameworks, just last February.
While Mikami has not made it clear if he has actually retired, Kamiya’s and PlatinumGames’ statements make it sound like Kamiya definitely is not. For that matter, this partnership does not seem to be ending in bad terms, either. We look forward to seeing what Kamiya has planned in the future.
