Resident Evil 4 celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, and you can honor the slimy shooter by playing it on PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, iPhone, or on your friend’s brother’s girlfriend’s iPad… just don’t tell series creator Shinji Mikami, who once threatened to slice himself open if the game ever left GameCube.
“Biohazard 4 will definitely release only on the GameCube,” Mikami told the Japanese magazine Hyper Capcom Special for its summer 2002 edition, according to a fan translation. “Not on another console. If it [is ported elsewhere], I will commit seppuku.”
Seppuku, or hara-kiri: a samurai’s ritual suicide by forcing a short blade across and up the stomach, death by disembowelment. It’s a grisly commitment to one’s honor, albeit a melodramatic sacrifice for the company that made Mario Kart Double Dash.
Later, IGN got more specific with Resident Evil 4 producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi. What about the PS2, which had more horror games than just Luigi’s Mansion? Surely Resident Evil 4 would make it to that console.
“Definitely not. Definitely not,” Kobayashi said, channeling Mikami’s gritted teeth loyalty. “It’s a GameCube exclusive.” A few months after his interview, publisher Capcom announced that Resident Evil 4 was getting a PS2 port.
So Mikami left Capcom in 2006, one year after Resident Evil 4 came out, and he eventually founded Tango Gameworks in 2010. While searching for developers for the new studio, Mikami updated his website with a now-defunct Flash game called Harakiri that let potential employees use a samurai (who appeared to be Killer7 developer Goichi Suda) to chop off what seemed to be Mikami’s head. It dutifully screamed Tango recruitment phrases as his skull tumbled through the sky.
At least the game was a more healthy outlet for Mikami’s GameCube disappointment. And it, along with time passing, appears to have worked magic. Now, Mikami is totally healed from the wound to his pride – he happily played the Resident Evil 4 remake on PS5 in 2023, writing on Twitter that he “enjoyed it very much.” It certainly beats cutting open an artery.
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