In the world of gaming development, there may be more scrapped games than there are officially released ones. In the case of Shinji Mikami, the creator ofResident Evil, that statement could not be more accurate. Outside ofResident Evil, Mikami has had his hand in the development of a number of different games outside of the series he’s best known for, and a number of games that never saw the light of day.
Mikami served as the director of the very firstResident Eviltitle back in 1996 and since then has served as a major proponent in most of the classicResident Evilgames. Though, Mikami hasn’t been involved in aResident Eviltitle sinceResident Evil4,and revealed in a recent interview that he hasnot been contacted for the remake ofResident Evil 4.
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In the exact same interview, Mikami revealed that he and his fellow developers over at Tango Gameworks previously worked on a title that, while entirely completed, never saw the light of day as it was not approved by the lead executives. It was a much smaller title compared toThe Evil Within,whichShini Mikami directed. The game was about a four-inch cockroach and the goal was to defeat human enemies using guns.
The game was codenamed “Noah” and it would have been a game that was entirely Mikami’s vision. While an incredibly odd premise for a game, it is certainly a unique one that presumably a lot of people could potentially find interesting. This game, while entirely finished, seems like it could have been a Japanese exclusive game. There are, after all, plenty of uniqueJapanese games that were never released for the American public.
It begs to question then, how many other games met a similar fate. Considering how manyResident Evilgamesthere are, it’s more than possible that a large number of spin-off games never released. However, it seems likely that those hypothetical games would be more likely to get published considering the premise ofResident Evilis easier to digest then a gun-wielding cockroach.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds in terms of Shinji Mikami. With the release of theResident Evil 4remakeon the horizon, it’s possible that Mikami could be contacted to consult on the upcoming remake. It would be nice to know what an industry professional like Mikami could bring to a remake of a game that he not only directed, but did so over ten years ago.
