Harada-san is leaving Tekken.
Harada-san is leaving.
Katsuhiro Harada, who has been the Lead in Tekken Series, arguably the human face of Tekken for the last almost 20 years, is leaving Bandai Namco at the end of this year. In a few weeks. He will still show up at the Tekken World Tour (TWT) finals, but as a guest, not officially apart of the Tekken team.
I’d say I’m sadden by this but I’m not entirely. I’m sad that the era of fighting game Japanese lead devs coming on to social media to tell tales about devolpment is ending. Well, not ending per se, this still happens. However, the people that were largely at the forefront of the new boon era from the mid-2000s, are much quieter. Most of those people have left their companies, left the fighting game genre, hell, even left the video game median behind. As for Harada, well….
Sigh.
I respect Harada is did a lot like his Capcom counterpart, Yoshinori Ono (Ono-san), to help illuminate the genre. I did like a one point the goofy vs banter back between him and Ono in the SF4/Tekken 6 days. I used to like the dunks he’d do on people with the fucking garbage ass takes on Twitter.
But I also grew up. I expanded my mindset.
The “Don’t Ask Me for Shit” shtick got stale and at times really abrasive. During the lockdown, Harada’s not great comments on rollback netcode for Tekken 7 among other things, rubbed the wrong way, and finally I stopped following him. I appreciate the long posts about dev history. I appreciate the long post he wrote describing the processes of the genre. I appreciate the posts showing the comradery that people in the Japanese video game devs process had bucking the pre-established narratives about hating each other to the death. I didn’t like the post that felt more brutal and business like.
However, things will be different soon. Harada will no longer be at Tekken or at Bandai Namco. I’m not losing my mind about whatever is in store for Tekken. I’d asked people to also do the same. How bad Season 2 of Tekken was didn’t caused this, and even if it did, there’s a serious question I’d ask to keep in mind:
Have you looked a video game development in 2025?
Developing a video game, regardless of the scope, is a fucking nightmare. Things are extremely complex. Large scale publishers are fucking nightmare to work for. The indie scene is also a nightmare to work for. Guaranteeing things like money to to survive and health care are nightmares that also shouldn’t be, which is my segway to shout…
IMPROVE WORKING CONDITIONS AND UNIONIZE THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
Game companies fold into other companies, get bought by other companies, then die out with the folds of ordinate money laundering origami crane for all for all of the shareholders. Like I came across this the other day and I’m still trying to quantify what it means. This is a bizarre thing to read in 2025, but sadly not to far removed from the norm.
Its sad Harada is leaving but its understandable. Would you like to work for any company that you had to fight to the death on a daily basis to get basic stuff to be green lit? This genre is corrosive, and the more niche you get, the more targeted the attacks are. I mean, every time something stupid happens in Tekken, what’s your go to response?
“Harada plz”
Would you like to work in the genre where the slightest change of even the serif of a font opens a chorus of “WOKE WOKE WOKE”? I’m tired of it just reading it and I’m not Harada.
Honestly, while I’m ambivalent to Harada’s social noise, I am concerned about the welfare of the Tekken development team. I’m sure there is someone to take the reigns, trained by Harada and experienced folks, but I do worry about their health and sanity. AAA game development is a specialized Hell. You’re fighting players who really have no fucks to give. You’re fighting upper management who are spending more to make marketable piles of shit with unethical AI garbage tools. If there’s one point I want to try to make, no scream across here, is that going into the future the health and sanity of the people making games should be a the forefront for improving games overall. You want to make Tekken 8 less fucking goofy with mechanics, stances, and other shit? Advocate for better working conditions for the development team. Hated Harada and every goofy thing that came out of his mouth? Advocate for better working conditions for the development team. Tired of stupid fighting game DLC, battle passes, and dumb dallies ecosystem co-oped from gotcha games? Advocate for better working conditions for the development team.
Yes, this has moved a bit of way from Harada to talk about advocating for better working conditions for the development team. But honestly, if you really care about Harada, if you really care about Tekken. If you care about things getting better for video games as whole in this bleak ass world of 2025, coming up on 2026, then advocating for better working conditions for the development team is an imperative.
Harada is a person, arguably the face of Tekken. However, he wasn’t the body of Tekken. Tekken will still go on. I’m sure Harada will be around in other events, be out on Twitter going over long yarns about the past in development. He’s not dying, he’s just not officially with Tekken. We didn’t have a Tekken with out Heihachi. We’re still not gonna have a Tekken that doesn’t have the touches that Harada gave to the series, even if he’s not at the company and working on the games. He’s still there. I’m sure even latter on, Bamco will fly his ass out to introduce something Tekken related going forward.
I guess I wanted to close to say that while he’s the face of Tekken, he’s not the body of it. There are many bodies still working at series. My hope is that Bandai Namco will treat those bodies with respect and give them time to develop something. I mean, I am an idiot to who enjoys Tekken 8 gameplay for the most part, outside of anything fiscally related (WHY DO WE HAVE A FUCKING BATTLE PASS AND GOTCHA COINS?!). I want to believe things can get better for Tekken, and they will if both Bamco and people respect the people who create things like a humans with basic human decency. I’d was going to close with something related to “Don’t ask me for shit” but honestly, I am asking for shit. I’m asking people to give one about others to improve the genre.
Anyway, best of luck Harada, but please don’t join a like a Net Ease style company, or someone MBS funded.
Please.
Fuck me.
