Tekken 8 is about to enter a new era without its longtime figurehead, and so is the former boss of the series.
Katsuhiro Harada apparently has no shortage of job offerings after the Tekken Director’s sudden departure from Bandai Namco.
Like we previously covered, Harada shared some New Year’s messages in 4Gamer’s annual game developer messages, but he had even more to say about what’s been going on in his life lately as far as his career goes.
The now former Tekken boss is seemingly a hot commodity on the job market, and it’s not just limited to the video game industry.
Harada revealed he was approached first by an American defense company after announcing his retirement, and he actually names who they are.
He says he was invited to a conference by Anduril Industries, who work in weapons and AI development.
“My retirement from the company became big news in the west, and the very first offer I received was from an overseas company in the defense industry (Why?),” said Harada via 4Gamer as translated by our own Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor.
“My retirement from the company became big news in the west, and the very first offer I received was from an overseas company in the defense industry (Why?)”
“After announcing my retirement, I was contacted by the Oculus Rift developer Palmer Luckey’s company Anduril Industries, which are in the defense industry and wanted to establish an Anduril Japan and invited me to a conference.”
“I wondered why they would invite me of all people, but once I was actually there I felt like I got a proper understanding of it. By the way, for Japanese companies the first ones to send me an offer were a Sushi restaurant chain (again, why?).”
And they apparently aren’t the only ones lining up to talk to the former Bamco boss.
“Outside of those, there have been an unbelievable amount of offers sent my way to the point where I can spend the whole day looking over offers from all kinds of places and still not have time to consider them all. ‘Maybe this? Or maybe that?’ is kind of how it feels.”
“Life is pretty interesting after all…”
Thus far, Harada hasn’t shared what his plans are after leaving Tekken behind after 30 years though it sounds like he’s not even sure himself.
He could certainly attempt to open his own game studio if he stays in the industry like former Capcom vs. SNK and Devil May Cry Director Hideaki Itsuno did after leaving Capcom should he want to.
But maybe the 55-year-old wants to try something different now.
In another part of his message, Harada answers who in 2025 he paid special attention to, and it was some of the people we lost including his longtime rival Tomonobu Itagaki from Dead or Alive.
“Tomonobu Itagaki of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame as well as Vince Zampella who worked on Call of Duty, Titanfall and Battlefield. They were game creators of the same generation as myself and both of them passed away this year. Of course, that’s going to make me think about things a lot more… It definitely hit me hard.”
“I’ve been spending my days expressing to the people around me how thankful I am for them and will continue to do so.”
Who knows what the future has in store for Tekken and Harada at this point, but we certainly wish the man well after dedicating most of his life to fighting games.
Bandai Namco has at least reaffirmed their continued support for Tekken 8 moving forward, so that game should be getting more content for a long time to come still.
We also recently translated the New Year’s messages from the Street Fighter 6 and New Virtua Fighter Project leads that you should check out too if you haven’t already.