{"id":67472,"date":"2026-06-01T14:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=67472"},"modified":"2026-06-01T15:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T06:04:24","slug":"tekken-8-director-kohei-ikeda-leaves-bandai-namco-studios-after-20-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/tekken-8-director-kohei-ikeda-leaves-bandai-namco-studios-after-20-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Tekken 8 director Kohei Ikeda leaves Bandai Namco Studios\u00a0after 20 years\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Tekken 8<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Tekken<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>7<\/strong>&nbsp;game&nbsp;director&nbsp;Kohei Ikeda&nbsp;(Nakatsu) announced on June 1 that he has left Bandai Namco Studios.&nbsp;This comes only half a year following the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/tekken-lead-katsuhiro-harada-to-leave-bandai-namco-at-the-end-of-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">departure of longtime Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada.<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a letter addressed to the Tekken fan community&nbsp;posted to his personal X account, Ikeda looked back on his 20-year run at Bandai Namco,&nbsp;which started with&nbsp;his involvement in&nbsp;Soulcalibur&nbsp;IV.&nbsp;He refers to his&nbsp;subsequent&nbsp;time on the Tekken&nbsp;development&nbsp;team as one of the most cherished experiences of his life, expressing gratitude to&nbsp;his&nbsp;mentors,&nbsp;coworkers&nbsp;and&nbsp;the whole fighting game community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">Announcement:<br>After 20 incredible years, I have left Bandai Namco Studios.<br>Thank you all for your support.<br><br>\u3010\u3054\u5831\u544a\u3011<br>\u30d0\u30f3\u30c0\u30a4\u30ca\u30e0\u30b3\u30b9\u30bf\u30b8\u30aa\u3092\u9000\u8077\u3044\u305f\u3057\u307e\u3057\u305f\u300220\u5e74\u9593\u3001\u672c\u5f53\u306b\u3042\u308a\u304c\u3068\u3046\u3054\u3056\u3044\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/TEKKEN?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TEKKEN<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/TEKKEN8?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TEKKEN8<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/%E9%89%84%E6%8B%B38?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u9244\u62f38<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3Xip9DOy5z\">pic.twitter.com\/3Xip9DOy5z<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Kohei Ikeda\uff08Nakatsu\uff09 (@nkt_dreamer) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nkt_dreamer\/status\/2061296807259595212?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 1, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While&nbsp;Ikeda does not touch on his reasons for leaving the company,&nbsp;he mentions&nbsp;he will be &#8220;taking on new challenges&#8221; as a game developer, so&nbsp;perhaps we&nbsp;can expect an update in the coming days.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for Tekken, Ikeda promises the series is&nbsp;in good hands, as he has entrusted both his personal values and the shared values of the&nbsp;Tekkken&nbsp;Project to&nbsp;an&nbsp;\u201cincredible team.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/the-vs-in-katsuhiro-haradas-new-vs-studio-doesnt-stand-for-versus-but-the-tekken-veteran-is-keen-on-exploring-competitive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The \u201cVS\u201d in Katsuhiro Harada\u2019s new VS Studio\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0stand for \u201cversus,\u201d but the Tekken veteran is\u00a0keen on \u201cexploring competitive games\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kohei Ikeda, the director of Tekken 7 and Tekken 8, has announced his departure from development company Bandai Namco Studios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":47929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-67472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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