- "Anything goes, as long as it's fun for the customer!"
- ―Tango Gameworks on their games
Tango Gameworks is a video game development studio founded by veteran developer, Shinji Mikami in 2010. One of the studio's primary objectives at the time was to train ambitious young developers in the games industry under his leadership and eventually equip them with the experience to take the mantle and pursue their own creative goals.
At the time of the company's founding, it consisted only of 13 team members, though by the release of The Evil Within, it's staff had grown to 35, later consisting of 65 budding creators with the release of The Evil Within 2 in 2017.
The company was acquired by ZeniMax Media, who publishes Tango Gameworks' games through their subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks.
In 2022, their supernatural action-adventure title Ghostwire Tokyo won the Japan Game Awards 2022 Award for excellence, and the PlayStation Awards 2022 User's Choice Award.
Early that year, Tango also dipped their toes into mobile gaming with Hero Dice, an iOS/Android game for smartphones in Japan. Published by ZeniMax Asia, it was a turn-based board-style game playable with up to four others in cooperative multiplayer. The game placed an emphasis on playing with wit, and during battles choosing between rolling a dice for a luck-based outcome, or play cards for a strategic approach.
The studio's 2023 unexpected release Hi-Fi RUSH recieved much acclaim from players, widely lauded for it's freshness and innovation, and won Best Audio Design at the Game Awards 2023, and was nominated for 4 other categories, as well as recieving the BAFTA Games Award for Animation the following year. The same year, Shinji Mikami departed from the studio, passing the torch to the apprentice developers.
In May of 2024 it was announced by Microsoft that they would be shutting down the studio, despite it's upward trend of success.
Company Process[]
Tango Gamework's company philosophy was stated around the importance of games that the creators are excited about creating, "The most important thing is to design games that both our customers and we the developers can enjoy and be satisfied with". Because game development never goes completely as planned, this modus operandi would always steer them towards their ultimate goal of making something their audience can enjoy.
The studio's environment strived for healthy communication between those working on their projects, "To improve quality, anyone can make any suggestion, and anyone can make any improvement. There is no division between sections, or between veterans versus newcomers, etc". As Tango grew, it was ensured that the workplace was kept as free and open to sharing ideas as possible.
Tango Gameworks self-described themselves as "proud to create games that entertain players around the world while having fun at the same time" and having "a passion for game development that is second to none". It was with this full passion that they hoped other gamers would love their work as well.
Games Developed[]
| Year | Title |
| 2014 | The Evil Within |
| 2015 | The Evil Within: The Assignment (DLC) |
| 2015 | The Evil Within: The Consequence (DLC) |
| 2015 | The Evil Within: The Executioner (DLC) |
| 2017 | The Evil Within 2 |
| 2022 | GhostWire Tokyo |
| 2022 | Hero Dice |
| 2023 | Hi-Fi RUSH |
Trivia[]
- The team's logo is a character they refer to as "Tango-chan", a joke in their hometown of an apparition who refuses to enter the ocean because he is weak to salt.
- Tango-chan will apparently grow if monosodium glutamate is sprinkled on him.
- Tango Gameworks described themselves on their website as "a proud member of the ZeniMax Media group, an industry leader with game development studios all over the world".
Gallery[]
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