Mikami and Kamiya roll over in the Clover

Further details of Capcom's recently founded development studio, Clover Studio, have emerged, revealing that Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and Devil May Cry director Hideki Kamiya will be joining the new company.

The formation of the new studio, which is described as an independent developer but will be wholly owned by Capcom, was announced last month following the closure of a number of the company's smaller development locations outside its home city of Osaka.

It will be headed up by Atsushi Inaba, who most recently worked as producer on the Steel Battalion (Tekki) games for Xbox and on critically lauded GameCube title Viewtiful Joe - with a PS2 conversion of Viewtiful Joe, along with Viewtiful Joe 2 for Cube and PS2, among the first titles that Clover Studio will work on.

With Inaba, Mikami and Kamiya on board, the staff line-up at Clover Studio begins to read like a Capcom All-Stars roster - and the other new game which has been announced by the studio suggests that the company wasn't just blowing hot air when it said that the new division would have the freedom to explore new and original game concepts.

Called Okami ("Wolf"), the game draws heavily on ancient Japanese mythology and religion, placing the player in the role of Amaterasu (the Shinto goddess of the sun) who, in the form of a wolf, must restore light and colour to the world - a poetic license interpretation of the classic Japanese myth where Amaterasu restores light to the world by emerging from self-imposed solitude in a cave. In keeping with the theme of the game, the graphics appear to be a unique form of cel shading which makes them look like traditional Japanese inked drawings.

The game is planned for launch on the PlayStation 2 at some point in 2005.