Unfortunately, I (along with roughly 50% of the team) was impacted by layoffs at Odyssey Interactive today. So I am now actively looking for new opportunities. 😅 If you or your team are looking for an experienced Character Artist, please let me know!
Having been a user of this software for more than half my life, seeing this announcement is shocking but completely unsurprising. I've never seen such blatant disdain for a product's userbase in my life, and this feels like the point it was almost destined to come to.
There are so many new applications for creating digital animation, but this one from the very beginning just had the juice. The irony of this all is that it wasn't built as an animation software, but for making interactive websites... ads, company portals, corporate shit. Multimedia projects created in this format were displayed using Flash Player, a browser supported plug-in.
Through Flash's entire lifetime, it felt as if Adobe was dragged kicking and screaming... never truly accepting the functionality it had organically developed as an artistic tool. From Adobe's perspective, it was the FORMAT that was the value; that is, they wanted Flash Player to be THE way to display multimedia across the web.
Adobe DID fight for Flash, but the fight was for dominance over web multimedia... in the oughts, it was THE way to display multimedia on your website. But little losses here and there, like Apple refusing to support the format for smart phones, lead to a steady decline. An adaptive shift to HTML5 support was added to Flash in order to maintain relevance, but the clear goal of total multimedia dominance was shattered. This shift marked the name change to "Animate"... a name that serves as a hollow non-acknowledgement of its consistently strong and loyal userbase of artists, but belies the gross truth of their true intentions: to continue to claw for dominance in the field of web-based multimedia.
Through all this, Flash/Animate continued to be an industry standard for digital 2D animation. Both independent and professional cartoonists utilized it to create beloved projects... even today. The corporate politics involved in the jockey for control of web-multimedia kept Adobe consistently blind to the voices of its most loyal users. One famous example is that Flash was notoriously terrible at exporting and rendering video from its proprietary vector-based format, so open-source software Swivel was developed by Mike Welsh to do it better. It may be difficult to understand this, but Flash was SO good, that even though it was consistently and profoundly broken, it was still often the tool of choice for animation.
The reason all this is important for me to convey is... There was a feeling this company gave animators through the lifetime of their product that we were not a priority. Even as it became a standard in the professional animation industry, we often felt like an afterthought in favor of the ultimate goal of corporate dominance. The fact that Flash/Animate happened to be a fantastic program for making cartoons was a complete accident... and Adobe only ever saw that as a cute little bonus.
So as we are getting more clarity around this decision to discontinue Animate... that Adobe sees this program as incompatible with their AI-based future goals... I think of how they've always operated: Staunchly anti-artist, anti-creative, and anti-human. This generative AI bullshit is nothing new, it is the next flavor of the same pathetic jockeying for corporate dominance. Artistic voices will continue to be ignored, while the artists they belong to will continue to be exploited. And that takes a mental toll on a creative mind. This announcement, to me, stands as a blatant admittance of this cycle. They do not care. And they never will.
We should care. Art is humanity. I am so grateful for this new renaissance of indie animation, and am doubly grateful and honored to be a part of it. It is so easy for corporations like Adobe and even just normal people to discount the value of art, both for its own sake and for its influence on the world. But it IS important. Your art is important and YOU are important. Please continue to create. Even if for no other reason than just to spite these motherfuckers.
I’d like to share that I’ll be leaving Bandai Namco at the end of 2025.
With the TEKKEN series reaching its 30th anniversary—an important milestone for a project I’ve devoted much of my life to—I felt this was the most fitting moment to bring one chapter to a close.
My roots lie in the days when I supported small local tournaments in Japanese arcades and in small halls and community centers overseas.
I still remember carrying arcade cabinets by myself, encouraging people to “Please try TEKKEN,” and directly facing the players right in front of me.
The conversations and atmosphere we shared in those places became the core of who I am as a developer and game creator.
Even as the times changed, those experiences have remained at the center of my identity.
And even after the tournament scene grew much larger, many of you continued to treat me like an old friend—challenging me at venues, inviting me out for drinks at bars.
Those memories are also deeply precious to me.
In recent years, I experienced the loss of several close friends in my personal life, and in my professional life I witnessed the retirement or passing of many senior colleagues whom I deeply respect.
Those accumulated events made me reflect on the “time I have left as a creator.”
During that period, I sought advice from Ken Kutaragi—whom I respect as though he were another father—and received invaluable encouragement and guidance.
His words quietly supported me in making this decision.
Over the past four to five years, I’ve gradually handed over all of my responsibilities, as well as the stories and worldbuilding I oversaw, to the team, bringing me to the present day.
Looking back, I was fortunate to work on an extraordinary variety of projects—VR titles (such as Summer Lesson), Pokkén Tournament, the SoulCalibur series, and many others, both inside and outside the company.
Each project was full of new discoveries and learning, and every one of them became an irreplaceable experience for me.
To everyone who has supported me, to communities around the world, and to all the colleagues who have walked alongside me for so many years, I offer my deepest gratitude.
I’ll share more about my next steps at a later date.
Thank you very much for everything.
【Postscript】
Although I will be leaving the company at the end of 2025, Bandai Namco has asked me to appear at the TWT Finals at the end of January 2026, so I expect to attend as a guest.
For 30 years I kept saying, “I’ll do it someday,” and never once performed as a DJ at a tournament event.
So instead, I will be releasing—for the first and last time—a 60-minute TEKKEN DJ-style nonstop mix (DJ mix), personally edited by myself, together with this announcement.
Listening to it brings back many memories.
Thank you again, sincerely, for all these years.
‘TEKKEN: A 30-Year Journey – Harada’s Final Mix’ by Katsuhiro Harada 1 is on #SoundCloud https://t.co/PUFOWt3R6M
December 8, 2025 - The Final Day of TEKKEN’s 30th Anniversary -
Katsuhiro Harada
[日本語版 (Japanese version)]
このたび、2025年末をもちまして、私はバンダイナムコを退職することにいたしました。
長く携わってきた『鉄拳』シリーズが30周年という大きな節目を迎え、ひとつの区切りとして最もふさわしい時期であると考えたためです。
私の原点は、日本のゲームセンターや、海外コミュニティの小さな講堂やコミュニティセンターで、まだ小規模なトーナメントをサポートしていた時代にあります。
アーケード筐体を自ら運び込み、「鉄拳もぜひ遊んでみてほしい」と声をかけながら、目の前の参加者と向き合った日々。
あの場で交わした言葉や空気が、私という開発者の核を形作りました。
時代が変化しても、あの経験が自分の中心にあります。
そしてトーナメントシーンが大きく成長した後も、皆さんは旧知の友人のように私に声をかけ、会場で対戦したり、バーで『一緒に飲もう』と誘ってくれました。
それらもまた、大切な思い出です。
ここ数年間、私生活においては友人達との死別があり、仕事においては、私が尊敬する多くの先輩方の引退や逝去に触れてきました。
そうした出来事の積み重ねが、私に『開発者として残された時間』について考える契機を与えました。
その過程で、私がもう一人の父親のように敬愛する久夛良木健さんにも相談し、貴重な助言と励ましのお言葉をいただきました。
この言葉もまた、今回の決断を静かに後押しするものとなりました。
そして、この4〜5年をかけて私の担ってきたすべての業務やストーリーや世界観、そして責務をチームに段階的に引き継ぎ、今日に至ります。
振り返れば、VR作品(サマーレッスンなど)や『ポッ拳』、ソウルキャリバーシリーズをはじめ、自社他社問わず数多くのプロジェクトに携わる機会に恵まれました。
いずれのプロジェクトも新しい発見と学びに満ち、かけがえのない経験となりました。
これまで支えてくださった皆様、世界中のコミュニティの皆様、そして長年ともに歩んできた仲間たちに深く感謝申し上げます。
次の歩みについては、改めて皆様にお伝えいたします。
これからも、どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。
+あとがき
2025年末をもって退職致しますが、2026年1月末のTWT FINALには顔を出してほしいと会社からお願いされていることもあり、FINALにはゲストとして顔を出すと思います。
これまで30年間『いつかやるよ』と言い続けてやってこなかったトーナメントイベントでのDJですが、その代わりとして“最初で最後のDJ風60分ノンストップ鉄拳ミックス(私による初編集DJ mix)”も、今回のポストに合わせて公開します。
‘TEKKEN: A 30-Year Journey – Harada’s Final Mix’ by Katsuhiro Harada 1 is on #SoundCloud https://t.co/PUFOWt3R6M
様々な思い出が蘇ります。改めて皆さんありがとうございました。
2025年12月8日 - 鉄拳30周年最終日 -
Katsuhiro Harada
NUEVO VIDEO!!
La industria de videojuegos en México ha tenido una evolución interesante. Cada vez se lanzan mejores juegos, aun con un ambiente donde la resiliencia y resistencia deben de ser superadas por la pasión y la creatividad.
Un documental hecho con cariño.
Link👇
¿Será suficientemente fuerte el vínculo entre Hawlucha y su Entrenadora para derrotar al invencible Machamp? Una cosa es segura: cuando dos poderosos Pokémon de tipo Pelea saltan al cuadrilátero, ¡llueven puñetazos! 🤜💥🤛
#LeyendasPokemonZA
Our Art Director (@liyart_ ) has made a SICK 220 page art book featuring:
✦Character concepts, sketches, and design processes by liyart
✦Illustrations by liyart + Jimbobox (@Jimboboxart).
✦3D model work by Cody Bunt (@_sstrikerr_) and Maddy Kenyon (@maddy_paddy)
(and some never before seen stuff!!)
Link below!
It's VERY common for sync (blocking) loading BP nodes to slip into a project, making it hitch.
A project should have ZERO of those in their projects in my opinion.
Finding them can be a challenge, so I made a validator to catch them in BPs early 👇 #uetips
https://t.co/mXSmo2ZCsW
What's up GAMERS
Just went and dropped a new patch for you all.
It's got:
- NEW SKINS
- IN-GAME VOICE CHAT POWERED BY @discord
- MORE EMOTE SLOTS???????
- OTHER STUFF
Check it out IMMEDIATELY on Steam