Tango says Hi-Fi Rush broke the stigma that they are a horror-only studio

[John Elden Ring]

Talking about the launch of Hi-Fi Rush, director John Johanas was happy with the popularity that the game achieved and states that this allowed Tango

The positive reaction is that I think Hi-Fi Rush did what we wanted, which is to show that we weren't just a studio that can only make horror games. Looking to the future, I think if we can do something like this, we will now be a very malleable studio for any project we can take on. And to show that we can, if we do, we strive for it. We will not avoid trying.

So I like to think we've finally achieved our goal of not being stuck in one style. I think it makes us better as developers because we can try new things. It's better for gamers because they can try new experiences that developers want to create.

Yuji Nakamura, Tango's main programmer, states that initially many of the studio's developers were disappointed with the choice, having preferred something more realistic or horror, however, they gradually began to have fun with the project:

Looking back, when I looked at the team, there were people who came to Tango wanting to make games with a realistic look, those games with a darker or horror theme. And when they got to the position of doing Hi-Fi Rush, they weren't thinking about it as a positive thing, they were like, “Oh my God, do I have to work on this?”

But as they got to know the game and got into the swing of development, they began to realize that it's fun to do something fun. Everyone here has already gained the experience of making a game in the non-horror genre, which means we can make other genres. This changed the attitude of people here.

Speaking about the size of the project, John Johanas says that many mistakenly call Hi-Fi Rush an indie game. According to him, this was not a cheap game to produce:

It was supposed to be a small Tango project. And people probably see it as a weird, AA-type title. Or people say, “Oh, they made a great indie game.” This is not an indie game. Obviously I can't say how much it cost, but it wasn't a cheap game to make.

Source

 

[flaccidsnake]

I don't think there was a stigma around them making horror games. In my mind, the stigma was making good-not-great games, and maybe Hi-Fi Rush is great.

 

[KiryuRealty]

It did nothing, however, to break the stigma that Tango games don't sell worth a damn.