Tango Gameworks Founder Shinji Mikami Responds to Studio Closure

Tango Gameworks Founder Shinji Mikami shares a brief response following the studio's closure.

By Ricky Frech

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it was closing four different studios under the Bethesda/ZeniMax label. One of those studios is Tango Gameworks, the team behind games like Hi-Fi Rush and The Evil Within. Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami founded Tango, though he left the studio last year to start something new. Even still, many fans continue to associate the founder with Tango Gameworks and are wondering what Mikami thinks about Microsoft's decision. Mikami did share a very brief response to the news on Twitter, which sums up most fans' feelings in a single word.

In his response, Mikami simply said, "Tango closed. Sad." You might assume someone who poured thirteen years into the studio to have more to say, and Mikami might speak more later, but emotions are likely still raw. Finding an easy way to sum up how he's feeling, especially with a potential language barrier makes a ton of sense. After all, "sad" is exactly how most fans of Tango Gameworks' games felt when hearing the news.  

Shinji Mikami's History at Tango Gameworks and Kamuy

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Mikami founded Tango back in 2010 as an independent studio that was working on a sci-fi open-world survival-adventure game that was said to be inspired by the 1984 film version of Dune. However, the studio quickly ran into financial trouble and Bethesda came on board to purchase the studio. From there, the first project was eventually cancelled, and Mikami went back to his survival horror roots to create The Evil Within series. Mikami would then serve as executive producer for The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush before leaving the studio in 2023.

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After leaving, Mikami stayed mostly quiet last year but announced earlier this year that he has formed a new studio named Kamuy. The goal of this studio is to provide Mikami with a way to help new developers get their projects off the ground while building smaller, unique games under the Kamuy banner. Mikami also wants to get away from the survival horror genre under a new studio that doesn't have the same expectations as he had working at Capcom and Tango. 

Thus far, Mikami and his team haven't revealed any details about what they're working on, but that's not too surprising given how early the project is. Remember, Kamuy was only announced this March, meaning we've only known about it for a few months. Even though Mikami wants to work on smaller projects, we're probably at least a year away from the studio actually revealing and launching a game.

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