Shinji Mikami

Shinji Mikami (三上 真司) is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer.

Mikami said that Resident Evil was a response to his disappointment with Zombi 2, a gory 1979 film by Italian director Lucio Fulci; Mikami was determined to make a game with none of the failings of the movie.

The resulting game became Biohazard, an action-adventure game which combined 3D polygonal characters and objects with pre-rendered backgrounds and featured zombies (among other monsters) heavily influenced by George A. Romero's Dead films.

Starting his career at Capcom in 1990, he has worked on many of the company's most successful games.

He joined Capcom in 1990 as a junior game designer, Mikami and fellow new hires were sent to a warehouse and ordered to "think hard about game design", then left unsupervised for the entire day.

After a few months of just doing that, he was suddenly placed on a team and given a leadership position despite knowing nothing about game development.

His first title, a quiz game for the Game Boy titled ''Capcom Quiz: Hatena?

no Daibōken'', was made in three months.

His three subsequent releases were all based on Disney-licensed properties: Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the Game Boy, and Aladdin and Goof Troop for the Super NES.

Aladdin was his first hit, selling over 1.75 million units worldwide.

Mikami also worked on Super Lap, an unreleased F1 racing game for the Game Boy that was scheduled to be released in 1992, but was canceled after eight months of development.

Mikami learned by observing his seniors; whenever he showed them his game design documents, they called his work "uninteresting" without giving any advice.

He found this environment comfortable, since it engendered independence and freedom of thought.

To Mikami, the art of game making was instilled in him by Tokuro Fujiwara.

After the release of Goof Troop, Mikami began development in 1993 of a horror-themed adventure game for the PlayStation set in a haunted mansion, called Resident Evil, originally conceived as a remake of Sweet Home (an earlier Famicom game by Capcom based on the Japanese horror film of the same name).

Sweet Home director Fujiwara entrusted Mikami, who was initially reluctant because he hated "being scared", with the project, because he "understood what's frightening."

He directed the first installment of the Resident Evil series in 1996 and the first installment of the Dino Crisis series in 1999, both survival horror games.

The game was retitled Resident Evil during its English localization under Capcom USA's suggestion and was released in Japan and North America on March 22, 1996, and became one of the PlayStation's first successful titles.

It was the first game to be dubbed a survival horror, a term Capcom coined to promote the game.

It was later ported to the Sega Saturn.

Resident Evil was considered the defining title for survival horror games and was responsible for popularizing the genre.

Its control scheme becoming a staple of the genre, and future titles would imitate its challenge of rationing highly limited resources and items.

The game's commercial success is credited with helping the PlayStation become the dominant game console, and also led to a series of Resident Evil films.

Mikami had creative control over the screenplay and script of the first movie being dubbed a creative consultant.

He returned to Resident Evil to direct the remake of the first game in 2002 and the third-person shooter Resident Evil 4 in 2005.

In 2006, he directed his final Capcom game God Hand, a beat 'em up action game.

In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.

Mikami grew up in the Yamaguchi Prefecture of Honshū island.

His father, who had to enter the workforce early and drop out of high school to support his family, beat him almost daily.

Beyond family life, his was a normal childhood, without video games but full of outdoor play: "Back in those days, kids had to be somewhat creative in coming up with games to play, because there wasn't that much else to occupy your free time".

His dream career was to be a Formula One driver.

In his adolescence Mikami became “obsessed” with horror films, such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Evil Dead.

Another hobby was the study of karate and kendo.

After failing entrance exams two years straight, Mikami enrolled into and graduated from Doshisha University, where he majored in the study of merchandise.

Although Mikami played arcade video games often, his entrance into the industry came by happenstance:

His application was rejected at the screening process, then approved one week later.

Mikami worked at PlatinumGames to direct the third-person shooter Vanquish in 2010.

The same year, he founded his own studio Tango Gameworks which has since been acquired by the American company ZeniMax Media.

Under his studio, he directed the third-person horror game The Evil Within in 2014.

He has also served the roles of producer and executive producer for many games.