Clover Studio

Clover Studio Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 株式会社クローバースタジオ, Hepburn: Kabushiki Gaisha Kurōbā Sutajio) was a Japanese video game developer founded by Capcom. The studio developed the PlayStation 2 port of Viewtiful Joe, both versions of Viewtiful Joe 2 for the GameCube and PlayStation 2, and the PS2 titles Ōkami and God Hand. The name "clover" is an abbreviation of "creativity lover" as well as the Japanese syllables mi ("three") and ba ("leaf") coming from the names of Shinji Mikami and Clover's Atsushi Inaba. The studio consisted largely of existing Capcom R&D talent, who had formed the company (then called Studio 9) to give themselves greater executive control (and thus creative freedom), like Sega's semi-autonomous studios in the early 2000s. The studio focused largely on creating new intellectual property rather than sequels. When these failed to perform on par with Capcom's more popular series, Capcom attempted to merge the studio back into their internal R&D. Those at the studio chose instead to leave the company, and Clover was dissolved. Some of the key members of Clover founded Seeds Inc., a new development group that merged with ODD Incorporated in October 2007 to form PlatinumGames, which has since built up a staff composed of former Clover staff. Other members (including the art director of Ōkami) went to join UTV Ignition Games at their Tokyo development studio, which developed the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. On 28 October 2010, one of the most prominent members of Clover Studio and then PlatinumGames, Shinji Mikami, joined ZeniMax Media in a deal where ZeniMax acquired his new development studio Tango Gameworks. It was announced during The Game Awards 2024 that Hideki Kamiya had founded a new independent studio named Clovers to develop a sequel to Ōkami, with its name being a reference to Clover Studio.