Tekken Director Broadcasts Shock Departure from Bandai Namco

Seemingly popping out of nowhere, present Tekken 8 director and longtime chief of the franchise Katsuhiro Harada introduced his departure from Bandai Namco on the finish of 2025. It is a stunning transfer for Harada, who has at all times been carefully related to the Tekken franchise he has helped work on over the previous 30 years. He additionally generally acts as the general public face for video games like Tekken 8 by saying new content material at numerous occasions alongside fellow producer, Michael Murray.

The information comes at a stunning time, as not solely is it the thirtieth anniversary of the franchise, however Tekken 8 has been a giant success for Bandai Namco, even with the Season 2 sturggles the studio needed to overcome. Many followers expect information of a brand new season of content material, and even Harada himself has beforehand admitted {that a} Tekken 9 would likely be his last game before retiring. Because it stands now, plans have seemingly modified because the Tekken franchise will likely be charting new territory with out Harada.

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Katsuhiro Harada Is Leaving Bandai Namco

In a prolonged publish on social media, Katsuhiro Harada admitted that, as Tekken reached its thirtieth anniversary, he felt it was a becoming second to lastly “deliver one chapter to a detailed.” As he spoke about his roots within the gaming business, together with interacting with individuals immediately at native tournaments and arcades, he admitted that current occasions have shifted his perspective a bit on how a lot time he has left as a creator. It is clear that the current passing of Tomonobu Itagaki had a profound influence on Harada, who put out a heartfelt assertion following the information and delivered the eulogy at his memorial service. To wrap up his publish, for the “first and final time” and as a nostalgic option to have fun the Tekken collection, Harada launched a 60-minute DJ mixture of the franchise, edited by himself.

Internally, the information is not doubtless as stunning as Harada confirmed that he has regularly been handing off lots of his obligations over the previous 5 years. Nonetheless, Bandai Namco, in addition to the present Tekken 8 group, adopted up Harada’s publish with one among their very own to thank him for all the pieces he is executed and confirmed that though he’ll be leaving on the finish of Tekken‘s 30th anniversary celebration, he’ll be making an look early in 2026 through the Tekken World Tour 2025 World Finals on January 30 and February 1, 2026 in Malmo, Sweden.

As well as, the corporate additionally addressed the way forward for the Tekken collection, trying to ease fan considerations by reconfirming the studio’s dedication to the franchise, future improvement, and content material plans for Tekken 8. Along with participant suggestions, the studio plans to honor the legacy of the franchise, whereas making certain that it upholds the imaginative and prescient and spirit construct by Harada.

For a lot of, Harada is finest remembered for being extremely energetic on social media, generally participating with followers about quite a lot of subjects, from Tekken lore, replace bulletins, DLC requests, to generally having to place individuals of their place. Curiously sufficient, Harada dealt with rumors of leaving Bandai Namco earlier in 2025, denying them on the time, although wanting again, it now looks as if the rumors had been at the least considerably justified.

Whereas he could also be finest identified for his work on the Tekken franchise, Harada has additionally held numerous roles aiding with quite a few different tasks at Bandai Namco. His farewell publish revealed a handful of them, as Harada famous that every one supplied him a way of discovery and studying, offering one other “irreplaceable expertise” for him. Whereas he labored on different combating sport franchises like Pokken Match and SoulCalibur, he was additionally concerned with Tales of Come up, Darkish Souls 3, Code Vein, and the unique Pac-Man spinoff known as Shadow Labyrinth.