Industry legend Shinji Mikami has a new(ish) studio with staff benefits like 'a chocolate fountain on Valentine's Day'
Shinji Mikami left Tango Gameworks in 2023, and shortly beforehand had started up a new development studio called Unbound. The company's website appears to have been live for over a year, but has only recently come to wider attention (first spotted, I believe, by VGC), and has some scant details about what they're cooking up. Well, one thing is chocolate brownies, which were made with the leftovers from having "a chocolate fountain on Valentine's Day." Yes, really: under employee benefits the website also lists delicious rice balls for breakfast, an all-day cafe, and an in-house bar that apparently serves free booze from 6pm. Hey, you can't redefine genres on an empty stomach.On a more serious note, the studio describes itself as a "fully independent company" that is "developing AAA titles and original IP" for consoles and PC. It currently has around 50 staff but is on a hiring spree for its current project.The website includes an interview from last year with Masato Kimura, whose career has moved more-or-less in lockstep with that of Mikami ever since the Resident Evil days. Kimura says Unbound has "a lively production style, a flexible development style. The programmers we work with have to be willing to put up with that all the way through, so we want people who enjoy that way of creating to join us."As for the game, "I can't give away any details yet, but it's a AAA title for high-end consumers," says Kimura. "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. 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."
Elsewhere he hints that the visual style of the new title will be "realistic", and says the current goal is to finish this larger title before moving onto multiple smaller projects. He says the studio's founding principle is to "put user enjoyment first and foremost in creating rich content" and "we hope to create many original titles and new games."Mikami also formed Kamuy in 2024, though it's unclear whether that is a distinct studio or an imprint at Unbound. The industry legend has kept a low profile ever since leaving Tango, with his last public utterance being a single word after Microsoft closed the studio he founded: "Sad."