Resident Evil legend Shinji Mikami's Unreal Engine 5 AAA IP could shake up horror and action
The legendary director behind Resident Evil 4 and the original Resident Evil game, Shinji Mikami, is making a comeback with his own independent studio. Previously, Shinji Mikami worked at Tango Gameworks and contributed to well-regarded titles like Hi-Fi Rush, The Evil Within, and Ghostwire: Tokyo. He exited the studio in 2023 and quietly kick-started his new studio, Unbound.
Shinji Mikami’s Unbound Studios has some incredible employees on its roster already, with developers from critically acclaimed series like Silent Hill, Shadow of the Colossus, and Devil May Cry, bringing some serious talent to the table. Notable mentions include Masato Kimura, who has worked with Mikami for many years on titles such as Hi-Fi Rush, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Resident Evil, and P.N.03.
Unbound Studios’ website has been up for more than a year, but it only recently started garnering attention. It appears Shinji Mikami is working on a new AAA IP in Unreal Engine 5 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
In an interview on Unbound’s website, Masato Kimura gave a few teasers about their upcoming project, stating, “I can’t give any details yet, but it’s a AAA title for core gamers. However, to be honest, it would be difficult to do the same kind of work in Japan as overseas AAA titles, which require hundreds of billions of yen and hundreds of people working for five to seven years to create.”
He continued, “So we’re aiming for AAA quality and AA content, which is why we’re creating a title that offers a rich gaming experience and allows you to be completely immersed in its world.”
Unbound is reportedly experimenting with new ideas, which sounds refreshing. Kimura explained this move and said, “Creating something new requires repeated trial and error, implementation and modification, tinkering, and sometimes even deletion.”
“Because we create by repeatedly building and breaking, trying this and that, things don’t always go as planned, and the context changes constantly. To put it in a positive way, it’s a lively production style, a flexible development style.”
Unbound currently positions itself as a fully independent outfit focusing on AAA titles, with nearly 50 employees and aiming to grow to 150 staff members as development of their unnamed AAA title progresses as planned.
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