Tekken fans recently grew alarmed at news spreading that Katsuhiro Harada could be calling it quits at Bandai Namco, and the game producer has offered clarification. This follows a change to Harada’s LinkedIn page that many believed indicated he would be leaving the Tekken team.
Harada has been a part of the team that’s brought Tekken to life since its inception, though not always in the same role. Initially, he provided voices to some of the Tekken characters in its first release, and later went on to direct the game starting with Tekken 3. While his role with the series sometimes changes, many fans have expressed worry over the idea of him leaving the company and the series’ development team entirely.
Recently, Harada made a change to his LinkedIn profile that set off alarms for fans. Genki initially reported that Harada had added an “#opentowork” hashtag to his profile, which was thought to mean that he was looking for work outside of Bandai. However, Harada has now clarified the matter, explaining that he’s not going anywhere, and just wants to expand his horizons by talking to more people. Harada assured Tekken fans that they don’t need to worry about it, and Genki has since withdrawn its original post.
CORRECTION! Katsuhiro Harada is NOT leaving Bandai Namco. He says he is just looking for more opportunities to meet more people and expand his horizons in the future.https://t.co/7eImnh7ypa
— Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) January 20, 2025
While fans were initially worried, it wouldn’t make much sense for Harada to leave the team at this point in time. Tekken 8 is still receiving fresh content. The game just released patch 1.11 a few days prior to this worrying development, and also added Final Fantasy 16’s Clive to the Tekken 8 fighter roster recently. Tekken 8 is already teasing and laying the groundwork for season 2, as well, which will arrive in spring 2025. While the title’s future updates have likely been laid out already, it would be surprising to see him leave while a Tekken game is still getting content.
With that said, Harada might still leave the series in the relative near future. Harada previously talked about his future with the series, noting that he might only have one more Tekken in him, due to his increasing age and “how that plays out in Japan and development.” It’s worth noting that there was nearly a decade between the release of Tekken 7 and Tekken 8, so if the development cycle of the next entry is similar, players could still be seeing Harada in a lead role on Tekken 9 sometime in the 2030s. In any case, players don’t need to fret over him leaving at this point.
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Source: https://gamerant.com/tekken-boss-katsuhiro-harada-leaving-rumor-response/
