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-Mikami starts off the article (historically?) noting that he felt directors should be in their 30's as 40 year olds and older are out of touch and 20 year olds are too young.

-When Mikami started at Capcom he was paid so little and worked so hard he couldn't get married or even go home most of the time.

-When he became a producer at Capcom he focused on setting up a director driven approach to game making with less collaboration.

-He left Capcom when they started operating more like a big Western publisher such as EA where ideas had to get through concept approval and market research.

-People kept asking him to make horror action games and he felt this was silly because why would he leave Capcom if he was just going to make the same type of thing when he left.

-After directing Vanquish and working on Shadows of the Damned, the latter of which he wasn't thrilled with turning into an action game, he decided to start a new studio focused on fostering talent and working on games as a collaborative instead of director only approach, while also fostering new, younger directors. Think of it like a hybrid of his old ideals and modern approaches.

-Tango's first six months were about making a joke game about a cockroach who used a gun.

-They then made an open world sci-fi game called Noah, but that got canceled when "something happened" and they ran into huge financial issues (I assume their publisher backed out).

-ZeniMax came along and saved the studio with a buyout.

-Mikami feels ZeniMax is more like a Japanese publisher (presumably historically speaking given his other comments) in that they will publish riskier ideas.

-The Evil Within was originally called Zwei because it focused on two players either in co-op or singleplayer who were attached by a chain, and AI would control the other when in singleplayer with them following behind.

-Later it became a big AAA singleplayer only project because ZeniMax wanted them to do one project and make it an action horror game instead rather than multiple smaller projects.

-ZeniMax also wanted Mikami to keep directing games so he pretty much implies he will keep doing that.

-Mikami names three staff members he would potentially like to see direct games at some point.

-All three staff members seem confused about why he wants them to direct games when asked about why he picked them.

-Mikami tries to micromanage less so it will be possible to prepare people for directing games in the future and everyone taking more notable roles, though he'd presumably still be directing one of their multiple games. He still works on setting up a structure so the vision of the game isn't lost however.

-Mikami is aware of the irony here that he's 48 and still their primary director and will likely direct a lot of additional games.

-Mikami's goals for the studio's next ten years is to make sure it continues to be a fun place to work and fosters younger talent.

-Hiroki Kato, lead designer of Vanquish and God Hand, has retired and become a farmer. I made a separate thread about that one.

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"Capcom became a little too big, and they started modeling their business structure after Electronic Arts — in terms of management, cost, human resources and budgets," he says. "At Capcom before, if a producer came to the senior management meeting with a good idea, it was instantly approved. But then there was a lot of research and a lot of business people involved giving their take. It should be like that as a public company, but I liked Capcom when it was small."

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The game went through a painful development process, he says, starting as an adventure concept that took place in a dark, tiny space and later becoming an action game. "Suda's vision and direction, and EA's vision and direction, were totally opposite," he says, noting that Suda is better suited at making adventure games than action games.

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The team's bigger idea was a game called Noah, a sci-fi open world "survival adventure" inspired by the movie Dune. As the story went, it had become a challenge to live on Earth, so people started moving to different planets. And a group of people living in a colony lost contact, so a research group went to find them.


Noah never got far into development, and soon after starting on it Tango ran into financial trouble. Mikami holds his tongue on the specifics, just saying "something happened." He laughs about the situation in retrospect.

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Mikami says that Tango has milestone check-ins with Bethesda every two months and Bethesda higher-ups can check its work at any point. But he likes their willingness to experiment. For instance, they allow teams to make big-budget, single-player games in a publishing market that tends to favor games with multiplayer features. "We're very proud to be a company that does single-player when a lot of other folks won't," said Bethesda Vice President of PR and Marketing Pete Hines in a 2013 Polygon story.

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With Bethesda in the picture, Tango left Noah behind and started in on a new Mikami-directed triple-A project code-named Zwei — the German word for "two." That name wasn't a coincidence. Zwei was to be a vampire hunting action game starring a man and a woman attached by a chain. It was a cooperative game, with part of the gimmick being if someone played alone, they'd control both characters simultaneously with one following the other.

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When Mikami thinks back to those two days with Kimura, his mind goes to a comment made by one of the higher-ups at Capcom at the time, Tatsuya Minami, who told him not to watch over people so closely so they would feel like they still had enough freedom to be creative. In retrospect, Mikami agrees with the sentiment.

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Those comments led to reports online of Mikami planning to retire as a director, which he says didn't go over well with higher-ups at Bethesda and may not end up being true.


"I probably shouldn't have said that," says Mikami. "My bosses were pretty upset. That was something I decided before I started Tango, that the next project would be my last. ... I was thinking back then that I would have to spend more time managing the studio and training people rather than directing. But now because Tango is part of Bethesda, I have less management overhead. So I have more time to get involved with a game than I originally thought I would."


At this point, Mikami says he doesn't know who will direct Tango's next game. It might be him. It might be someone else at Tango.

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Nishikawa, who previously directed black and white action game MadWorld at Platinum Games, takes the praise modestly. "I know that I don't have any special genius creativity," he says, "but maybe Mikami thinks I do? I mean, why is he always nominating me? When I look back at my past accomplishments, I don't see it."


When Nishikawa describes his approach to development, however, it fits right in line with Mikami's comments. He talks of giving a game structure to prevent the team from constantly tearing things down and losing motivation, and customizing a game's design to team members' preferences. "Mikami probably saw me trying to make this environment where we're enjoying making games together without worrying about who's job is what and thought I looked like I could put a team together," he says.

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Nakamura, the first woman whom Mikami has chosen as a potential director, takes her own modest approach. "Mr. Mikami seems to think I am a strange animal," she says. "Maybe that's why he's taken interest in me? The other two above me, Mr. Katakai and Mr. Nishikawa, have their own distinct personalities. I wouldn't say I'm in the same league."

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After wrapping his second interview for this story, Mikami checks his phone and sees an email from a former protege, Hiroki Kato, who Mikami appointed to direct Resident Evil Code: Veronica in the late '90s. Despite Code: Veronica's critical success, Kato never struck it big as a director, and instead went on to work as a designer on games such as the beat-'em-up God Hand and Vanquish.


Following Vanquish, he left the world of game development. And he emailed Mikami to let him know he had decided to become a farmer. Mikami reads the message and laughs, then shares the news with Kimura and others at the restaurant like a proud father.