Hideki Kamiya

Japan · Born 1970 · Capcom, PlatinumGames, Clovers · Game Director

He directed Resident Evil 2, turned an abandoned Resident Evil 4 prototype into Devil May Cry, and later co-founded PlatinumGames, where he made Bayonetta.

Hideki Kamiya was born on 19 December 1970 in Matsumoto, Nagano. He joined Capcom in 1994 as a designer and worked as a planner on the original Resident Evil before being given the director's chair for Resident Evil 2 (1998), which he led to become one of the best-selling games on the PlayStation. His next project began as an early prototype of Resident Evil 4. As it developed, its stylish, acrobatic combat moved so far from survival horror that it became a new series: Devil May Cry (2001), the game that established the fast, combo-driven "character action" genre. Kamiya then directed Viewtiful Joe (2003), a side-scrolling action game built around slow-motion and speed effects, and Ōkami (2006), a game styled after Japanese ink painting, both developed by Capcom's Clover Studio. Capcom closed Clover Studio in late 2006. On 1 August 2006 Kamiya co-founded PlatinumGames with Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba, and there he directed Bayonetta (2009) and The Wonderful 101 (2013), later serving as the studio's vice president from 2017. He left PlatinumGames in October 2023 and founded a new studio, Clovers; at The Game Awards 2024 a sequel to Ōkami was announced as its first project.