Katsuhiro Harada is looking to forge his own path at the newly-created VS Studio, and it seems they’re already off to a strong start.
The former Tekken boss has revealed that talent recruitment is way ahead of what he was expecting.
The senior developer who spent 30 years at Bandai Namco before leaving at the end of last year is still in the process of building his team from scratch where things sound like they’re going well.
Harada recently took to social media again to talk about how he was told that hiring would be much harder as an independent game studio, but their experience is apparently the exact opposite.
“I had been told that ‘once you become independent, recruiting becomes difficult,’ but thankfully, people have been coming together to join us,” wrote Harada on X. “As a result, our recruitment schedule for elite core members is already fully booked through the end of December this year, to the point that we are now overflowing with interest.”
“Together with these outstanding colleagues, we are spending our nights discussing and updating our plans for the future of game development — in the best possible sense, with the same kind of energy and excitement as the dawn of the polygon and online era in the 1990s.”
I had been told that “once you become independent, recruiting becomes difficult,” but thankfully, people have been coming together to join us. As a result, our recruitment schedule for elite core members is already fully booked through the end of December this year, to the point…
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) May 20, 2026
This isn’t the first time the former Tekken Director has talked about wanting to create a game development environment like things were in the ’90s and has lamented the current process at big studios where things like corporate overhead and stakeholder interests have to be considered.
Although he is the CEO and head of VS Studio, Harada is also saying he wants to be much more hands-on with the creative side of making his new game too and not just the overseer.
While it’s nice to hear that things are off to a good start, we still don’t really know who else is on the team and how many people they are trying to put on it.
We have been receiving a steady stream of congratulations for VS Studio. It is incredibly encouraging! pic.twitter.com/oMigGXBkQN
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) May 20, 2026
The only other developer we really know that Harada personally recruited was another former Tekken Director in Yuichi Yonemori, whose work goes back to Tekken Tag Tournament 1 and the first Soul Calibur.
They haven’t revealed what kind of game they want to make yet, but Harada says he wants to create a new competitive video game — whether or not it’s a fighting game remains to be seen.
Since VS Studio is still very much in the hiring process, it’ll probably be at least a handful of years before we get to see what they’re going to cook up.
Although they are technically independent, VS Studio is also receiving support from SNK as well since they’re owned under the same umbrella of the Electronic Gaming Development Company from Saudi Arabia.
