Japanese video game designer Tomonobu Itagaki has passed away at age 58.
He's best known as the creator of Dead or alive and reviving the Ninja Gaiden franchise. He was also known for his outspoken opinions on the video game industry while wearing his signature leather jacket and sunglasses.
Itagaki joined Tecmo in 1992 as a graphics programmer, and initially worked on the Super Famicom version of the American football video game, Tecmo Super Bowl. His career breakthrough came in 1996 with his first Dead or Alive game, a game based on Sega Model 2 hardware (Virtua Fighter) created in response to Tecmo management's request and featured female characters with strategically-placed "bounce" physics. The series spawned several sequels, as well as spinoffs such as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. He also developed the rebooted Ninja Gaiden series in 2004, which spawned several sequels.
Itagaki resigned from Koei Tecmo just before the release of Ninja Gaiden II in 2008. He founded Valhalla Game Studios in 2009, and the developer released its first game, Devil's Third, in 2015 for the Wii U. A PC version titled Devil's Third Online launched in 2016, but ended service in 2017. Itagaki resigned from Valhalla Game Studios in August 2017. Itagaki announced in 2021 that he has established a new studio named Itagaki Games. At the time, Itagaki said he had spent the prior four years teaching game development to a younger generation. However, he felt that he wanted to "make a game again and just established a company for that purpose."
