Having already re-written the rulebook with the action-oriented Resident Evil 4, The Evil Within brings back the tension and anxiety of earlier titles. Mikami’s latest release, The Evil Within ( Psycho Break in Japan), is at once both a look back to the roots of survival horror and an evolution of Mikami’s previous work. But in Mikami’s games, even military training isn’t enough.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition you expect someone fully armed and trained to be able to cope with almost anything. Even in the action-heavy Resident Evil 4, Leon’s two colleagues are swiftly dispatched, leaving him alone to face the horrors to come. In Mikami’s earlier Dino Crisis, another team is parachuted onto an island, and one member is quickly chewed up by a T-Rex. In the Resident Evil intro movie, the S.T.A.R.S (Special Tactics and Rescue Squad) Alpha team are hunted by undead dogs, losing one member before their mission has even begun. Taking a leaf from James Cameron’s classic Aliens, all confidence disappears after the first encounter with the enemy.

Mikami’s titles have fully armed soldiers or cops as the leads – Clare Redfield in Resident Evil 2 being the sole exception. It’s quite an unusual format, as most horror protagonists are generally ordinary folks forced to be either hero, heroine or victim. An elite trained squad faces and is promptly humbled by creatures that are the result of experimentation gone wrong. Resident Evil set the template for Mikami’s horror titles. And the horror element referring to being trapped in a single location with the undead – and worse.

Your limited inventory forcing you to decide whether to carry the mansion key or the acid rounds. The survival aspect referring to management of resources, so you couldn’t just go in guns blazing. Although at heart an action adventure title, survival horror turned out to be the perfect descriptor. Indeed, it was he who coined the term survival horror for his seminal 1996 PlayStation title Biohazard – known outside Japan as Resident Evil. Shinji Mikami is considered the godfather of horror videogames.

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