When The Evil Within was released in 2014, many people were excited because of one name on the box: Shinji Mikami. A major hand in the Resident Evil series' beginnings, Mikami is seen by many as a legend in horror video games. The Evil Within was a critical and commercial success, and this was year got its sequel: The Evil Within 2. Mikami was still on the project, but no longer as the game director, replaced by a man named John Johanas. Without the legendary status of Mikami, without decades of experience, he led the team and we thought The Evil Within 2 was a brave and brilliant game.

We spoke to Johanas about what it's like taking over Mikami's role, the making of The Evil Within 2 and, of course, what's next.

What's the story behind you being approached for the role of game director on The Evil Within 2, over Shinji Mikami last time?

It kind of just happened! I was pulled into a room, and they said "you do it!" It wasn't a question, it wasn't an offer, it was more like a finger point. After The Evil Within 1 was wrapping up I was given the opportunity to write a game design document for a series of DLCs [downloadable content, add-ons to the game] that we had planned to do for the original and I had made this sort of game concept for it. While we were still finishing up the game, Mikami-san asked me to write the script for that in the meantime, because that way it would go well with the game design if one person is handling it, and then after I did that he said "Well, since you already wrote and script and did the game design, you might as well just direct it and make sure it reaches that goal."