Tekken 8 director jumps ship to join Harada’s new Vs Studio team
Kohei Ikeda, the game director of Tekken 8, has left Bandai Namco to join Katsuhiro Harada at the newly formed Vs Studio. Ikeda announced the move via Twitter, marking a significant shift in the fighting game industry as one of Tekken 8’s key creative leads departs the franchise.
Harada, formerly of Bandai Namco, recently established Vs Studio as a new independent developer. Ikeda’s departure follows the earlier move of Yuichi Yonemori, another senior Tekken developer, who left Bandai Namco earlier this year to join the same studio. The three veterans—Ikeda, Harada, and Yonemori—have reunited under Vs Studio’s banner, bringing decades of combined experience in fighting game development.
Harada’s career leading Tekken spanned multiple generations of the franchise, and his departure to form a new studio represented a major industry shift. The reunion of these super-senior developers at Vs Studio suggests the new studio will focus on competitive fighting game development, though Vs Studio’s first official project remains undisclosed. The move highlights ongoing personnel shifts within the fighting game industry and the mobility of veteran talent.