Shinji Mikami will forever be synonymous with horror games. While he’s spent the last few years creating some amazing action games (the revolutionary RE4, cult classic God Hand, and the tragically underrated Vanquish,) he’s always going to be most famous for directing the original Resident Evil, the game which coined the phrase “survival horror” in the first place. After a long absence, Mikami is returning to the genre he helped popularize with a brand new survival horror game, currently codenamed “Zwei.”
Mikami left Capcom a few years back, and for a while he worked with his fellow ex-Capcom compatriots at Platinum Games (headed by RE2 director and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya,) where he directed Vanquish. A short while after that, Mikami left Japan to open a new American-based development studio named Tango Gameworks, which is owned by Zenimax Media, the same corporation that also owns Bethesda, the developer and publisher of the Elder Scrolls series.
Mikami’s new game is a collaborative effort between Tango and Bethesda, and Mikami describes Zwei as “pure survival horror.” I loved Resident Evil 4, but ever since the release of that landmark title, there’s no denying that the traditional survival horror formula has more or less disappeared. I don’t necessarily mind the genre’s evolution, but I know there are a lot of old school horror fans out there jonesing for a old school, RE1-style experience. If anyone can make the traditional, slow-paced survival horror genre relevant again in the face of more action oriented competition like Dead Space and Alan Wake, it’s definitely Mikami.
Details about Zwei, such as it’s release date or what systems it will appear on, have yet to be revealed.
Source: Zwei Official Site
