Shinji Mikami, the founder of Tango Gameworks and its current CEO, is set to leave the studio in the coming months. The news initially broke earlier this Thursday morning when a company-wide email sent to ZeniMax employees surfaced on the internet but has since been confirmed by both Bethesda Softworks and Xbox.
The email reportedly came from Bethesda Softworks senior vice president Todd Vaughn, in which he praised Mikami's contributions to the team saying: I am writing today to let you know that studio head Shinji Mikami has decided to leave Tango Gameworks in the coming months.
Mikami-san has been a creative leader and supportive mentor to young developers at Tango for 12 years through his work on the Evil Within franchise, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and of course, Hi-Fi Rush. The celebrated video game director started his development career in 1989 with Capcom. He quickly established himself as a creative genius, laying out the foundation for the Resident Evil survival-horror series in 1996, by forging two of the franchise's main characters in Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine.
His tenure at Capcom lasted until 2007, making his mark as a director on Resident Evil, its GameCube remake, and Resident Evil 4 during that time frame. In the meantime, he also directed the first Dino Crisis game, and several other titles like sci-fi shooter P.N. 03, and beat 'em up God Hand.