Resident Evil and The Evil Within director Shinji Mikami is now working on his next project. The iconic game designer, who directed the original Resident Evil at Capcom and later formed Tango Gameworks, has launched Unbound Games, a new, completely independent studio focused on making AAA games for PC, PS5 and Xbox. The company is currently hiring for its first project, which it calls New IP.
Recently, details about Unbound Games appeared on the company’s website (spotted by VGC ), revealing the company’s profile and employees. Unbound was founded on November 30, 2022, and began operations in May 2023, a few months after Mikami left Tango Gameworks. Mikami is listed as the company’s representative director.
Unfettered use of new IPs
According to a job page on Unbound’s website, the company’s employees have worked on games such as Ghostwire: Tokyo, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Sonic, Onimusha, Dead Rising, and Hi-Fi Rush.
“We are a newly formed, completely independent company, a high-end consumer game development studio producing AAA original games,” reads an overview on the company’s job page (translated from Japanese).
Unbound is looking for developers to develop “new original IP.”
“This is a huge opportunity to be one of the first dozens of core developers in the less restrictive environment of a fledgling new game development studio, with the freedom and discretion to develop a new original IP project for the world from launch onwards. With a strong interest and strong enthusiasm for this challenge, we are looking for people who can gamble a period of their lives with us,” the job page reads.
Mikami and Unbound have yet to share details about the studio’s first project.
After directing critically acclaimed games such as Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Resident Evil 4, Mikami founded Tango Gameworks in 2010 and directed The Evil Within. Under Mikami’s leadership, Tango developed The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush. Mikami left Tango in 2023 after the launch of Hi-Fi Rush.
Tango was acquired by Bethesda parent company Zenimax in the year it was founded, and was later shut down by Microsoft in May 2024, along with other Bethesda-owned studios such as Arkane Austin. However, a few months later, Krafton acquired the intellectual property rights for Tango and Hi-Fi Rush. Last June, Tango announced a rebrand and confirmed it was hiring for a new action game.
