{"id":57167,"date":"2026-06-01T17:10:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T09:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=57167"},"modified":"2026-06-01T17:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T09:10:59","slug":"another-vital-figure-has-left-bandai-namco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=57167","title":{"rendered":"Another Vital Figure Has Left Bandai Namco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/tekken-8-director-quits.png?w=300\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bandai Namco&#8217;s Tekken team has had several high-profile departures over the past year. First was assistant director Yohei Shimbori in August of 2025, followed by Executive Director and the &#8220;face of Tekken&#8221; Katsuhiro Harada&#8211;who recently revealed his new studio in partnership with SNK. Today, another Tekken developer and fighting-game veteran has officially announced his departure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kohei Ikeda, known among fans under the moniker &#8220;Nakatsu,&#8221; has worked at Bandai Namco for over 20 years&#8211;primarily on the Tekken series but also contributing to games like Soulcalibur IV and the Project X Zone titles. He served as both game director and chief producer on Tekken 8. But that tenure appears to be ending, as he announced in a post on X, in both English and Japanese, that he is leaving after two decades with the company. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">Announcement:<br \/>After 20 incredible years, I have left Bandai Namco Studios.<br \/>Thank you all for your support.<\/p>\n<p>\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>\n<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><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Becoming part of the company I had always admired&#8211;[Bandai] Namco&#8211;was truly a dream come true,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Dedicating ourselves wholeheartedly to game development together remains one of the most cherished experiences of my life.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Nakatsu didn&#8217;t give a definitive reason for leaving the company, it does not mark the end of his career in games development as he also said he will &#8220;continue to take on new challenges&#8221; in the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Tekken 8 has been a sales success for Bandai Namco Games&#8211;and it&#8217;s getting plenty of future DLC support, including the recently-announced Yujiro Hanma guest character&#8211;there&#8217;s also been a lot of controversy surrounding the gameplay direction from longtime players. With Ikeda&#8217;s departure, there&#8217;s sure to be a lot of speculation on who will step up to assume his mantle, and where the future of the Tekken series will be headed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/another-vital-figure-has-left-bandai-namco\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bandai Namco&#8217;s Tekken team has had several high-profile departures over the past year. First was assistant director Yohei Shimbori in August of 2025, followed by&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[11025,2758,518,11152,2990],"class_list":["post-57167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-bandai","tag-figure","tag-left","tag-namco","tag-vital","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}