Katsuhiro Harada spent 20 years as the figurehead of Tekken before his sudden “retirement” in December. He’s long been synonymous with Bandai Namco’s fighting series and it was honestly a shock—even to me, a non-fighting game guy—when he left. But it turns out Harada hasn’t left development nor fighting games: less than half-a-year since his December departure comes news of his new job.
Harada is now the CEO of a new studio under SNK, the storied Japanese company behind the Neo Geo and a handful of highly regarded arcade games, most of them very much Harada’s stylistic wheelhouse. The King of Fighters and Fatal Fury series come immediately to mind, but you’ve almost certainly heard of Metal Slug as well. In addition to games you can play on your PC, SNK continues to develop for arcades too.
If VS Studio has a game in-development I’d be surprised: it was only established on May 1, and as that last quote demonstrates they’re actively recruiting. It’s also not a dead certainty that Harada will be developing a fighting game (though ‘VS Studio’ is a big hint). During his time at Bandai Namco Harada worked on a bunch of non-fighting projects including Katamari Damacy Reroll, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and Code Vein.
