Grave Gamer News & Views — shinji mikami

Brother, you know you’ve got troubles when giant eyeballs start sproutin’ outta the walls.

The Father of Survival Horror Wants to Bring Scary Back

Shinji Mikami, the Japanese game designer heralded as The Father of Survival Horror since unleashing Resident Evil unto the world in 1996, says gamers are too inured against being scared these days.

“Not much has changed when it comes to instilling terror in the player,” Mikami said, talking up Edge Online at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. “But people have got used to the tropes of horror and they know what’s coming next, so in that sense it is harder to make them afraid.”

Shinji and his newly constructed team at Tango Gameworks are sure as shit going to try to rattle your nerves, though. Their vessel is the promising, tensely atmospheric The Evil Within – a new survival horror game steeped in classic scares. According to Mikami, it’s not about reinventing the genre; it’s about digging up its roots and latching on to what worked in the first place.

Constant gunplay, sporadic Quick-Time-Events, mindless action – what’s become routine in modern horror games the likes of Dead Space and, sadly, current Resident Evil installments are being done away with in The Evil Within. Contrary to this generation’s teachings, survival relies on far more than a loaded gun.

“The scariest parts will be when you encounter enemies that cannot be killed with a gun,” says Mikami. Instead, you’ll have to use your environment and quick thinking to trap chainsaw swinging freaks lest you’re looking to lose a few feet above your shoulders.

When Bethesda, Tango’s parent company, initially announced the horror title (under the name Zwei), Shinji stated it would be his last directorial effort. A year later and the designer, thankfully, has changed his tune.

“I don’t think I’ll ever completely stop doing creative work,” he said. “We’re a studio that makes things, and that means we need a leader who also makes things. So I don’t think I’ll be taking my hands off the wheel completely. I want to give younger staff the chance to make games – that’s something I’m very passionate about – but I’m not sick of making games or anything. I want to continue in a creative role. That will never change.”

The Evil Within - Extended Gameplay Video

Man, these ex-Capcom employees are on a rampage. First Keiji Inafune decides to make a “spiritual successor” to Mega Man that looks more like Son of Mega Man than anything else. Now, Shinji Mikami is making a survival horror title that’s practically the Resident Evil sequel he/we always wanted.

But where our investigation of the Spencer Estate went crazy,...

Resident Evil Remake’s Poor Sales Upped the Action in RE4

Survival horror just ain’t what it used to be. In Resident Evil’s case — in which its modern titles each and all feature robust amounts of gunplay and even martial arts action (you’d slap me if I told you that during the PS1 era) — a marked shift away from its survival horror roots can be traced back to one pivotal turning point in the franchise’s history.

Series mastermind Shinji Mikami recalls that it was the 2002 Resident Evil remake’s financial failure that goaded him to turn Resident Evil 4 into Die Hard with parasitic, pitchfork-wielding villagers. I understand; I was befuddled by this news, too. The game was lauded as a critical success, after all. But Capcom’s exclusivity deal that locked REmake onto the Gamecube (and, years later, the Wii) might go a long way in explaining the disparity.

“The Resident Evil remake is one of my favorites of the series too,” said Mikami in an interview with IGN initially about a totally different game (The Evil Within). “But it didn’t sell very well. Maybe there weren’t many people ready to accept that. Because of the reaction to the Resident Evil remake, I decided to work more action into Resident Evil 4.”

Had the remake sold well, RE4 would have been a scarier, more horror driven game says Mikami. “With Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, and all the rest of the series beforeResident Evil 4, I was always saying to the staff, ‘Scaring the player is the number one thing.’ But for the first time, in Resident Evil 4, I told the team that fun gameplay is the most important thing… That all came out of the commercial failure of the Resident Evil remake.”

Even after all these years, Shinji is still burned about RE4’s dominance overREmake. “And then of course Resident Evil 4 sold really well. I have kind of a lingering trauma there, because the Resident Evil remake didn’t sell — much more than people would think.”

My, my, our RE creators are having themselves a walk down memory lane as of late. Not too long ago, Hideki Kamiya was reflecting on how he very nearly ruined the hell out of Resident Evil 2 (the game was restarted from scratch at Mikami and team’s insistence even though the original build neared 60% completion). Can’t wait to hear in another decade just what the hell went awry with RE5 and 6. Keep an eye out for that article come 2023.

The Father of Survival Horror’s Last Opus

Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil (and, inadvertently, me as well because of that fact), has reached his final directorial effort, and lucky us, it’s a gruesomely gorgeous survival horror title that minces the nerve flaring intensity of yesteryear with tomorrow’s skin-crawling visual detail.

The Evil Within (Psychobreakin Japan'cause psychotics give...