Tekken 8 Director Kohei Ikeda Joins Katsuhiro Harada’s New Studio VS Studio

Kohei Ikeda, a 20-year Bandai Namco Studios veteran who worked on the Tekken series, has joined VS Studio, the Tokyo developer founded in 2026年5月 by former Bandai Namco producer Katsuhiro Harada with backing from SNK. Ikeda announced the move on 2026年8月18日, two and a half months after leaving Bandai Namco, where he had spent 20 years.

“I’ve joined VS STUDIO as the next step in my journey,” Ikeda wrote, alongside a photo of himself with Harada and another former boss, whom Ikeda’s post does not name. “Working on games again with two of my former bosses feels nostalgic in many ways, while at the same time, the excitement of creating something completely new makes every day incredibly fulfilling.”

Ikeda’s own profile now describes him as a game designer at VS Studio SNK. The hire reunites two of the most senior figures behind the modern Tekken series: Harada, who produced the franchise for decades, and Ikeda, who directed its two most recent mainline entries.

Three Tekken Veterans, One New Company

VS Studio SNK was established on 2026年5月1日, with Harada as representative director and CEO, and announced publicly on 2026年5月13日. Harada had departed Bandai Namco after 31 years at the company, where he worked across arcade, console, and VR titles and spent years fronting Tekken’s global marketing and tournament scene.

SNK’s announcement said it had invested in the new studio and planned to bring it into its group as a consolidated subsidiary, with the two companies collaborating on game software development. The studio’s own site draws the line precisely: VS Studio is a subsidiary of SNK but not a wholly owned one, and operates with guaranteed independence.

Ikeda’s path there ran through a public goodbye. On 2026年6月1日, he announced he had left Bandai Namco Studios, closing out two decades at the company. His arrival at VS Studio completes a leadership bench built almost entirely from Tekken’s own history. Readers following the series can see where that legacy stands in our rundown of the best fighting games on PlayStation 5.

What SNK Is Getting

The corporate shape of the deal matters here. SNK is the investor and majority parent, but VS Studio is structurally independent, hiring through its own channel rather than SNK’s. The studio’s business, as registered, covers the planning, development, and operation of video game software, and it shares its Shinagawa, Tokyo offices across the fourth floor of a building near Meguro Station.

For SNK, the arrangement adds a second development capability alongside its own teams, which most recently shipped Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves in 2025, a revival covered in our everything-we-know rundown. SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda, himself a veteran of the company’s fighting-game lineage, framed the investment as a long-discussed collaboration finally made real when the studio was announced.

The philosophy statement on VS Studio’s site expands the “VS” initials into a string of working mottos — “Visionary Standard,” “Vanguard Spirit” among them — around the studio’s stated creed, “Beyond tradition, crafted to perfection.” What it has not yet done is name its first project. SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda said in May that nothing had been decided on that front, and Ikeda’s announcement offers no title, genre, or timeline.

What the studio now has, on the record, is a CEO who produced Tekken for over three decades and a game designer who directed its last two numbered entries — all inside a company majority-backed by the publisher of Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters.