Katsuhiro Harada, has announced his departure from Bandai Namco having worked on the Tekken series for 30 years.
“I’d like to share that I’ll be leaving Bandai Namco at the end of 2025,” he wrote in a statement.
“With the Tekken series reaching its 30th anniversary—an important milestone for a project I’ve devoted much of my life to – I felt this was the most fitting moment to bring one chapter to a close. My roots lie in the days when I supported small local tournaments in Japanese arcades and in small halls and community centres overseas. I still remember carrying arcade cabinets by myself, encouraging people to ‘Please try Tekken,’ and directly facing the players right in front of me.
“The conversations and atmosphere we shared in those places became the core of who I am as a developer and game creator. Even as the times changed, those experiences have remained at the centre of my identity. And even after the tournament scene grew much larger, many of you continued to treat me like an old friend—challenging me at venues, inviting me out for drinks at bars. Those memories are also deeply precious to me.
“In recent years, I experienced the loss of several close friends in my personal life, and in my professional life I witnessed the retirement or passing of many senior colleagues whom I deeply respect. Those accumulated events made me reflect on the ‘time I have left as a creator.’ During that period, I sought advice from Ken Kutaragi—whom I respect as though he were another fathe – and received invaluable encouragement and guidance. His words quietly supported me in making this decision.
“Over the past four to five years, I’ve gradually handed over all of my responsibilities, as well as the stories and worldbuilding I oversaw, to the team, bringing me to the present day. Looking back, I was fortunate to work on an extraordinary variety of projects—VR titles (such as Summer Lesson), Pokkén Tournament, the SoulCalibur series, and many others, both inside and outside the company. Each project was full of new discoveries and learning, and every one of them became an irreplaceable experience for me.
“To everyone who has supported me, to communities around the world, and to all the colleagues who have walked alongside me for so many years, I offer my deepest gratitude.
“I’ll share more about my next steps at a later date. Thank you very much for everything.”
If you’ve been following Harada’s outspoken comments over the past few years, this may not come as much of a surprise: the Tekken boss has made a few suggestions that his future may not rest within the walls of the Japanese publisher. First up, he had a ‘looking for work’ tag on his LinkedIn page, leading people to speculate that he was looking for the door in his current place of work.
Then, earlier this year, Harada spoke to Eurogamer about what a future without him would look like at Bandai Namco. “[I] feel over the past 30 years the gameplay has been polished and everything is in place, so it’s much easier to continue with someone else,” he told Connor Makar at Evo 2025. “[Producer Michael Murray and I are] public figures for Tekken, sure. Compared to other people outside of the company – and this is [my] personal opinion not the official stance of Bandai Namco – it really depends [on the game]. There are other games out there – even fighting games – where there is no public figure to attach to it.”
In the same interview, Murray also mentioned that he may have ‘only one Tekken game left in him’, so it feels like there could be a potential shift in the franchise as Tekken 8 continues to grow and people start to think about what Tekken 9 (or Tekken Tag Tournament 3) could look like.
Tekken 8 has been the source of a lot of controversy ever since launch. Alongside a series of emergency patches that had to be issued by the developer to appease irritated fans, there was also a glut of controversy surrounding the game and its DLC methods, which Harada – in typical fashion – was very outspoken about.
If you’re concerned about the game losing its identity without the dynamic, public-facing duo, fret not: Street Fighter 6 was the first game in the series for years that didn’t include much input from Yoshinori Ono, who also left Capcom after 30 years with the company. Street Fighter 6 has been a massive success, however, proving that there is life in these storied fighting games – even without the notable figureheads leading the charge with the crowd-facing side of development.
