Harada steps back into the ring: his independent studio is preparing a surprise fighting game

Katsuhiro Harada, the man who for decades was the public face of Tekken, has started to drop hints about what comes next. According to IGN Spain, the veteran designer has shared the first details of his next project, which he is developing at VS Studio, the independent studio he founded after leaving Bandai Namco at the start of this year. And here comes the part that interests us most: the game will belong to the genre in which Harada is already a legend. We are talking, of course, about fighting games.

It may sound like more of the same, but for those of us who live the competitive scene, the news has more layers than it seems. Harada is no ordinary creator: his name is tied to one of the series that has propped up the fighting game circuit for what feels like forever. His decision to start from scratch, without the umbrella of a major publisher and without the Tekken brand behind him, is one of those moves that could shake up the genre for years, for better or for worse.

What you need to know

• Who: Katsuhiro Harada, former head of the Tekken franchise and one of the most recognizable names in the genre.
• What: he has revealed some details about his next video game, although he has not formally announced it yet; a surprise announcement is expected.
• Where: he is developing it at VS Studio, his new independent studio.
• Genre: it will be a fighting game, the ground on which he built his entire reputation.
• Background: Harada left Bandai Namco early this year, closing a very long chapter at the helm of Tekken.

From Tekken to VS Studio: the leap to independence

Harada's departure from Bandai Namco was one of the biggest stories of the year within the genre. For a long time, his figure and Tekken's were practically one and the same: he was the one fronting tournaments, social media and every announcement for the series. Now, with VS Studio, he faces a completely different landscape. He loses the infrastructure and financial muscle of a major company, but he also frees himself from the constraints of a franchise with an enormous history and a player base that demands continuity.

The statement reported by IGN Spain sums up his approach quite well:

What I want to protect is what I am good at.

It is a line that can be read in two ways. The optimistic one: Harada knows exactly what his craft is and will not scatter his efforts on experiments outside his specialty. The skeptical one: perhaps the market expected something bolder from someone who, for the first time in many years, does not have to answer to a publisher.

What we know and what we don't

It is worth being honest about what is actually on the table. We know the genre and we know who is behind it. We do not know the game's name, whether it will go for the 3D that made Tekken famous or another style, which platforms it will launch on, or when. There are no clues either about the size of the project or whether it aims to be a competitively focused title or something more experimental. Everything else, for now, is speculation.

What could change in the competitive scene

If the project comes together, the fighting game scene would gain a contender with a pedigree very few independent studios can boast. For competitive players, that means a potential new discipline to carve out a path in from day one, without years of accumulated metagame ahead of them. For content creators, a Harada game is guaranteed coverage material: every drop of information will spark conversation, and being there from the start is usually the difference between growing alongside a community or arriving late.

The flip side is that the genre is already fairly crowded. A new fighting game does not arrive in a vacuum, but in a scene that splits its time and money among several established titles, including Tekken itself. Competing against the very creature you created has its irony, and its risk too.

Our take

At Underworld Lordz we are glad Harada did not go off to make a gacha mobile game or some generic platformer. Wanting to protect what he is good at strikes us as a sensible and even admirable stance. But it also forces us to set the bar high: if you are going to make a fighting game in 2026 with your name on the cover, the community is going to demand top-tier netcode, a serious ranked mode and a long-term support plan. Prestige alone is not enough.

And that is where our biggest doubt lies. An independent studio, however illustrious its founder, does not have the same capacity to sustain a title for years, fund circuits, organize tournaments or patch every month. The fighting games that succeed competitively do so because someone puts money and patience on the table long after launch. Harada knows this better than anyone; the question is whether VS Studio will be able to afford it.

That said, we would rather have a free Harada with something to prove than a comfortable one. The genre's best moments have almost always come from people with something to prove. If the surprise announcement brings a game with its own identity, built with the scene in mind, we will be the first in line to play it, stream it and put in hours in the lab.

What do you think?

The ball is now in Harada's and VS Studio's court, and until the official announcement arrives, it is all guesswork. Do you think an independent fighting game with his name on it can carve out a place in the competitive scene, or does the genre no longer have room for one more contender? Let us know in the team chat or on our Discord.