Image via Kohei Ikeda’s X/Twitter account
Tekken 8 game director Kohei Ikeda (also known as Nakatsu) announced on Monday that he has left Bandai Namco Entertainment, having worked at the company for 20 years.
Ikeda was the game director on the fighting games Tekken 7 and Tekken 8, the producer on the Tekken 3D Prime Edition game, and a designer for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. He was also a designer and battle effect director on SoulCalibur IV.
Ikeda’s departure comes soon after the departure of fomer Tekken project producer and executive game director Katsuhiro Harada at the end of 2025. Harada, who had worked on every title of the game series, had worked closely with Ikeda for the past 10 years on the game series’ design. Harada recently announced that he is leading SNK’s new studio VS Studio SNK.
Source: Kohei Ikeda’s X/Twitter account via Gematsu
Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.
