Bandai Namco director exodus: three Tekken leads gone in nine months, no successors named
Summary
Tekken 8 Game Director Kohei Ikeda left Bandai Namco on June 1 after 20 years - the third senior Tekken departure since August 2025
All three leadership layers lost: executive direction (Harada), production (Shimbori), game direction (Ikeda)
No successors have been publicly named for any role
"While my role leading the team as Game Director is coming to a close, the values that both I personally and the Tekken Project have always cherished... will never change"
01
Three leadership layers vacated in under a year
August 2025: Producer Yohei Shimbori exits Bandai Namco
December 2025: Katsuhiro Harada departs after 31 years as Tekken Project Executive Game Director
June 1, 2026: Kohei Ikeda, Game Director of Tekken 7 and Tekken 8, leaves after 20 years
Harada co-founded VS Studio with SNK; Tekken Tag Tournament director Yuichi Yonemori followed him there
Ikeda's destination is undisclosed; VS Studio is actively recruiting
02
No named successors during a troubled live-service cycle
Ikeda said he "entrusted those values and that baton" to the existing team - no individual successor identified
Tekken 8 Season 3 launched March 2026 but required an emergency balance patch after community backlash
Harada cited "loss" of colleagues and reflection on "time I have left as a creator" as exit motivators
That framing points to generational and cultural pressure across legacy Japanese studios, not isolated career moves
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Japan
COMPILED BY GAMES ATLAS EDITORIAL
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