On the back of Bandai Namco’s announcement that Tekken’s much-loved, martial arts marsupial Roger Jr. will be coming to Tekken 8 as part of a salvo of ‘Season 3’ DLC characters, former Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada has confirmed that he had a hand in the kangaroo’s clever reveal.
Debuted at EVO 2026, Bandai Namco aired a brief teaser for Roger Jr.’s upcoming arrival that was clear homage to a 10-year-old viral video out of Australia of a man punching an aggressive kangaroo right in the snout. For context, it was in the process of rescuing a dog – which the kangaroo had in a headlock at the time.
“Back in September of last year, when we decided to bring Roger back, I sent the team a YouTube link to ‘that famous video’ because I wanted us to recreate it,” wrote Harada via his personal social media. “Some of the younger team members had never seen it before.”
“I wasn’t personally involved in editing this video, but I heard yesterday that around springtime the team was actually hesitating over whether to include the recreation because they were running out of time. Apparently, [Tekken 8 game director Kohei Ikeda’s] final direction was, ‘We absolutely have to do it.’”
Harada conceded he had actually given up on the idea himself.
“I thought, ‘They probably won’t do that gag anymore. They’ve probably forgotten about it,’” he continued. “So when I saw it yesterday, it genuinely made me smile. I thought, ‘Ah, they actually did it!’”
Roger Jr. last appeared in 2007’s Tekken 6, but was absent from Tekken 7. The Roger Jr. teaser appears at the end of the Bob gameplay trailer below, with a note fans can expect a full trailer at EVO France on October 11, 2026.
Harada announced his departure from Bandai Namco in December 2025, where he had worked on the Tekken series for over 30 years. Harada has subsequently set up his own game development company – VS Studio – in partnership with SNK Corporation (The King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, and Samurai Showdown).
It was recently announced that fellow Tekken veteran Kohei Ikeda has also left Bandai Namco. Game director on Tekken and Tekken 8, Ikeda spent 20 years at the company.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
