.jpg?disable=upscale&width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&ssl=1 "Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki, 58 passes away")
Former Tecmo game director Tomonobu Itagaki has died at the age of 58.
The death of the veteran developer was announced by his family. on his Facebook page with the latest message from an experienced developer. Itagaki was best known as the creator and director of the Tecmo Dead or Alive series starting in 1996, as well as the revival of the Ninja Gaidan franchise with the 2004 game. Ninja Gaidan.
“The light of my life is about to fade,” Itagaki wrote in his latest message (translated from Japanese via Google Translate). He described his life as a “series of battles” that he continued to win and that despite the challenges, he remained true to his beliefs and “has no regrets.” He expressed regret at not being able to share his “new work” with fans.
He ended his last message with the phrase in English: “that’s how it is.”
Itagaki's peers from across the video game industry general messages mourning his loss. Tekken series director and producer Katsuhiro Harada called his death “too early” post on X. “Didn’t you say you were going to beat me someday? Didn't you come to my wedding in your usual black leather jacket and sunglasses and call me your ally? Didn’t you tell me to come to you when I had problems?”
“I haven’t even had a chance to consult you about anything.”
Itagaki was a boisterous and sometimes inappropriately creative person.
As many game industry professionals have noted when celebrating Itagaki's legacy, the famed game director and producer was personally known for his signature leather jacket and sunglasses. Contemporary coverage of his career shows that he had a habit of demonstrating intoxicated by industry events and sometimes I do inappropriate comments about the (often sexualized, sometimes juvenile) characters in his games.
Itagaki began his career at Tecmo in 1992 as a graphics programmer for the Super Famicon version. Tecmo Super Cupand would spend another 16 years with the company, taking over the leadership of the Ninja Gaidan development team. Ninja Team in 2001 and rose to the rank of executive director in 2004. But in 2006 he was removed from this position after accused of sexual abuse that began in 2003.. Tokyo court dropped the charges against him in 2007.
He left Tecmo in 2008, suing the company and demanding 148 million yen (about $1.4 million) for unpaid bonuses. He also filed a lawsuit against then-company president Yoshimi Yasuda for “baseless and disingenuous statements” made in the workplace. He then founded Valhalla Entertainment, which will release Wii U exclusive Devil's Third in 2015. He left the company in 2017 and returned to game development in 2021 with founding of Itagaki Games. It's unclear if any of the games he worked on at the studio will ever see the light of day.
“Not everyone has to live on the edge like I do. I think if that were the case, that would also be a problem,” Itagaki said in an interview. 2011 interview with game developer (then Gamasutra), discussing the types of creatives he wanted to work with.
In it, he shared a philosophy that—for better or worse—seems to encapsulate the roller coaster ride of his career. “Confidence is something internal,” he said. “It has to come from your background. Something you know you can do, and you can do it for the future, and you can back it up.”
Itagaki is survived by his wife and 28-year-old daughter.
