In the video game industry, we don’t have a lot of legends, but we have a handful, especially in Japan. That’s why anything that comes from these individuals is always news. These are people whose work has defined the medium, has made it grow and evolve in a very specific way, into what it is today, and it’s important to always keep an eye on what they do, even if sometimes the news isn’t exactly cheerful.
Hideki Kamiya is one of those legends. A designer, director, and executive vice president of PlatinumGames, he co-founded the company along with Atsushi Inaba, Shinji Mikami, and Tatsuya Minami on October 1, 2007. And today, he has announced that he will leave the studio on October 12.
The studio has issued a statement on Twitter about this situation but has not provided further details about his next destination. While they suggest that he is neither retiring nor leaving the game development industry. Similarly, Kamiya has issued his own statement, reaffirming that he will continue creating “in his own Hideki Kamiya style” and that he hopes we will be very attentive to what is to come.
Hideki Kamiya’s career has been extremely long and filled with successes. Starting in 1994 at Capcom, he worked at the studio as a director on classics like Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, and Viewtiful Joe. Then, in 2004, he moved to Clover Studio, a studio founded by Capcom to nurture developers’ ideas, specifically Kamiya’s. From here came the exceptional Okami, a game that took The Legend of Zelda formula a step further than we knew at the time.
When Clover Studio closed in 2006, Kamiya founded PlatinumGames. There, in addition to working on supervision and creative direction, he directed two modern cult classics: Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101. He was currently in charge of directing the studio’s new project, Project G. G., a game about giant monsters, and it remains uncertain what will happen with this project after his departure. We hope to learn more about both Kamiya’s next destination and the fate of Project G. G. in the coming weeks.
