Former Resident Evil 2 Director Jokingly Pitches a Stardew Valley-Style Spinoff

Hideki Kamiya, a renowned gaming industry veteran and the director of the original Resident Evil 2, has just shared what his ideal non-horror Resident Evil spinoff would look like. Hideki Kamiya’s tongue-in-cheek Resident Evil pitch sees a retired Leon Kennedy living in the countryside, fishing and inviting his old allies over for barbecues.

Joining Capcom in 1994, Hideki Kamiya’s first role in the gaming industry was as a systems planner on the very first Resident Evil. Despite still being relatively new to the industry, Kamiya would receive his first directorial credit in 1998 with the release of Resident Evil 2. Kamiya continued to work with Capcom for the best part of a decade, creating and directing titles like Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami, but in 2006 Kamiya left to found PlatinumGames alongside fellow former Capcom producers Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba. In 2023, Kamiya left PlatinumGames and formed the new Clovers studio with Kento Koyama. He’s currently working on the sequel to Okami that was announced during the 2024 Game Awards.

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Hideki Kamiya’s Cozy Vision for Resident Evil

On June 26, the official Japanese Resident Evil (Biohazard) Twitter account shared details of an in-person exhibition that will be opening in Shibuya later this year to mark the Resident Evil franchise’s 30th anniversary. Hideki Kamiya shared this post and included a heartfelt caption reflecting on his time with the series and how it’s evolved since his departure from the studio.

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Along with telling Capcom and the series’ developers to “keep up the great work,” Kamiya jokingly asked for the studio to add a “not scary mode” to future Resident Evil installments, referencing previous statements the creator has made regarding his inability to enjoy horror games.

A fan replied to Kamiya’s Tweet, acknowledging the developer’s hesitancy for horror but expressing a desire to see a continuation of Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield’s stories as envisioned by one of their key creators. Kamiya then replied with his own joke pitch for a Resident Evil spinoff that avoids horror altogether. In this theoretical game, Leon Kennedy would be retired and would go fishing in the countryside, foraging for wild vegetables, bake bread, walk the dog, tend his own garden, and “invite old buddies over for a barbecue,” along with fixing a hypothetical neighbor’s grandma’s oven and selling homemade lemonade at a local festival.

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While Hideki Kamiya’s pitch for a cozy, almost Stardew Valley-like Resident Evil game is clearly a gag one, the RE2 director’s Tweet did gain quite a bit of traction. Though some replies to Kamiya’s Tweet expressed their confusion over a non-horror mode in a horror game, others shared Kamiya’s sentiments, claiming that they want to experience the story and characters these games have to offer but can’t do so due to their horror elements. Some commentors suggested a mode that would dress zombies up in colorful costumes, or change the zombies altogether to something that’s less scary, like tofu.