Following his departure from Bandai Namco at the end of 2025, Katsuhiro Harada has announced the establishment of VS Studio SNK (hereafter VS Studio), a new independent game development studio led by him and supported by Fatal Fury developer SNK.
Given Harada’s history with the Tekken franchise, you would be forgiven for assuming that the “VS” in his new studio stands for “versus” (in reference to fighting games). While Harada understands this assumption, the letters actually have more to do with the history of his career as a game developer.
In a joint media interview attended by AUTOMATON, Harada revealed that the letters can be traced to his and longtime Tekken dev and director Yuichi Yonemori’s roots working at Namco’s Video Game Soft Development Department, abbreviated internally as the “VS Development Department.” The now-defunct department was Namco’s software creative division, responsible not just for fighting games like Tekken, but also for other genre-defining titles before the company’s merger with Bandai in 2005.
While Harada and Yonemori named the new studio after their shared history, Harada says that the acronym has many meanings, ranging from cool titles like “Vanguard Spirits” to “Visual Studio,” all of which the studio embodies.
At VS Studio, Harada aims to get back to directly “making things” by becoming more involved with the creative and development side of games in parallel with his work as the studio’s director. While he wasn’t ready to spill the beans on what VS Studio will be making quite yet, he said that he’s aware of the expectations the market holds for him and SNK, and is eager to explore competitive games.
As for VS Studio’s development staff, while Harada would like his new independent studio to attract young creators, he also believes that “senior” devs, aged 45 or older, should be more valued as assets in the industry. He hopes that the studio will become a melting pot of sorts, where energetic young creators with new ideas and experienced veterans can create games together.
Harada uses the term “creators” since he doesn’t want to limit aspiring applicants to game devs. When asked what kind of people he would like to attract to VS Studio, he replied by saying that some media representatives would be a good fit, as he has spoken to many in the past who were avid arcade game players.
“I think people whose passion hasn’t waned, regardless of age – for example, those with knowledge of various games, who have played a wide range of titles, or who have spoken with many different developers – are actually well-suited to be developers. I want to bring in as many people as possible who possess that curiosity and passion for games.”
