Highlights
- Harada is departing from Bandai Namco at the end of this year after three decades.
- He has been with the Tekken franchise from the original Tekken 3 as creative lead and producer.
- He chose to depart from the franchise on its 30th anniversary and describes it as the “most fitting moment.”
It is the end of an era! Katsuhiro Harada, the lead of the Tekken project, is departing from the team after more than 30 years with the franchise.
Harada has been the creative lead and the producer on the Tekken series from the original Tekken 3 to the latest Tekken 8.
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He has been on the team for more than three decades and announced the departure from the team via an X (formerly Twitter) post.
In the statement posted on X, he described the series’ 30th anniversary as the “most fitting moment” to close this chapter of his career.
Here are a few facts about Harada and the Tekken franchise.
- Harada joined Namco in the early ’90s, starting with arcade games before moving to the original Tekken development team.
- In the long three decades with the franchise, Harada has been director/producer of major titles like Tekken 3 , Tekken 5, Tekken 6, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and Tekken 7 and finally the executive game director and chief producer of Tekken 8.
- The Tekken series originally began with arcades in ’94 and was then later released on PlayStation in ’95. And then it became the key pillar of the PS brand.
- As of now, Namco has sold more than 60 million copies of the Tekken series on all the platforms worldwide. And the latest Tekken 8 has sold about 3 million copies within its first year.
What happens to Tekken now? In the post itself, Harada clearly stated that the Namco Tekken team is fully committed to the research and development of the franchise. And over time he handed over the responsibilities to the current team.
“Rest assured that we are fully committed to the future development and content plans for Tekken 8. We will continue to take community feedback on the game and its content to heart to ensure that we uphold the vision and spirit built by Harada-san, dedicating our utmost efforts to ensure the legacy of the Tekken series continues as a fighting game franchise beloved worldwide.”
By the end, Harada didn’t mention his future endeavors but did mention, “For 30 years I kept saying, ‘I’ll do it someday,’ and never once performed as a DJ at a tournament event. So instead, I will be releasing – for the first and last time – a 60-minute Tekken DJ-style nonstop mix (DJ mix) , personally edited by myself, together with this announcement.” So fans might still see him pop up as a DJ at future Tekken or esports events..
That being said, it is actually the end of an era for the Tekken franchise. Harada’s influence and hard work helped shape Tekken’s identity over the years, and it will be interesting to see how future leads guide the series from here.
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