Shinji Mikami attributes Resident Evil’s action focus to poor sales

Shinji Mikami, whose upcoming game The Evil Within returns the survival-horror genre to its roots, explained why his Resident Evil series gravitated toward action.

"Because of the reaction to the Resident Evil remake, I decided to work more action into Resident Evil 4," he told IGN. "Resident Evil 4 would have been a more scary, horror-focused game if the remake had sold well.”

That remake came out for Nintendo GameCube in 2002 and was followed by Resident Evil: Zero, Dead Aim, and two Outbreak titles. Then came RE 4 in 2005, which did incredibly well.

Mikami also admitted that the series' evolution — and the overall trend of survival-horror games now, like the Dead Space series — was a natural progression.

"I’ve been looking at the survival-horror genre for a long time," he said. "I don’t think it’s specifically because developers want to appeal to a wider audience. I think they just want to make their games more fun, and if they’re reaching more and more in that direction, they’re naturally going to go toward more action."

The Evil Within releases for current and next-gen consoles and PC in 2014.