Tekken Boss clarifies rumors that he is leaving Bandai Namco

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Summary

  • Harada clarified that he is not leaving Bandai Namco to explore new opportunities #opentowork

  • Tekken 8 development continues with Harada on board, the game is still getting new content

  • Harada may only have one more Tekken in him due to his age and future development plans

Tekken Fans were recently concerned by news circulating that Katsuhiro Harada might resign from Bandai Namco, and the game producer has offered some clarification. This after a change to Harada's LinkedIn page that many believed indicated he was leaving Tekken team.

Harada has been part of the team that has been brought Tekken to life since the beginning, but not always in the same role. At first he gave voices to some of them Tekken characters in its first release, and later went on to direct the game from there Tekken 3. While his role in the series occasionally changes, many fans have expressed concern at the idea of ​​him leaving the company and the series' development team entirely.

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Recently, Harada made a change to his LinkedIn profile that set off alarms for fans. Genki initially reported that Harada had added a “#opentowork” hashtag to his profile, which was taken to mean that he was looking for work outside of Bandai. However, Harada has now clarified the matter, explaining that he is not going anywhere, and just wants to broaden his horizons by talking to more people. Harada assured Tekken fans that they don't need to worry about it, and Genki has since retracted his original post.

Tekken 8 development continues with Harada on board

Although fans were initially worried, it wouldn't make much sense for Harada to leave the team at this point. Tekken 8 still getting new content. The game just released patch 1.11 a few days before this worrying development, and was also added Final Fantasy 16's Clive to the Tekken 8 fighter roster recently. Tekken 8 is already teasing and setting the stage for Season 2, which will arrive in the spring of 2025. While future updates to the title have likely already been laid out, it would be surprising to see him leave while a Tekken the game is still getting content.

That said, Harada could still leave the series in the relatively near future. Harada previously talked about his future with the series, noting that he might just have one more Tekken in him, because of his increasing age and “the way it looks in Japan and the development.” It is worth noting that almost a decade passed between the release of Tekken 7 and Tekken 8so if the development cycle for the next entry is similar, gamers can still see Harada in a lead role on Tekken 9 sometime in the 2030s. In any case, players don't have to worry about him leaving at this point.

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