Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki, 58 passes away

Former Tecmo game director Tomonobu Itagaki has passed away at age 58.

Word of the veteran developer’s passing comes from a statement shared by his family on his Facebook page with one last message from the veteran developer. Itagaki was best known for creating and directing Tecmo’s Dead or Alive series starting in 1996, and reviving Ninja Gaiden franchise with the 2004 game Ninja Gaiden.

“The light of my life is about to run out,” Itagaki wrote in his final post (translated from Japanese via Google Translate). He called his life a “series of battles” that he kept winning, and that despite the trials he stayed by his beliefs and has “no regrets.” He expressed remorse for not being able to share his “new work” with fans.

He concluded his last message with a phrase in English: “so it goes.”

Itagaki’s peers from across the video game industry have shared messages mourning his loss. Tekken series director and producer Katsuhiro Harada called his passing “too soon” in a post on X. “Didn’t you say you were going to defeat me someday? Didn’t you come to my wedding, wearing your usual black leather jacket and sunglasses, and call me your comrade-in-arms? Didn’t you tell me to come to you whenever I was in trouble?”

“I never even got the chance to consult you about anything.” 

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Itagaki’s was a raucous—and sometimes inappropriate creative

As noted by many game industry professionals celebrating Itagaki’s legacy, the famed game director and producer was a big personally known for his trademark leather jacket and sunglasses. Contemporaneous coverage of his career shows that he had a habit of showing up inebriated to industry events and sometimes making inappropriate comments about the (often sexualized, sometimes underage) characters in his games.

Itagaki began his career at Tecmo in 1992 as a graphics programmer on the Super Famicon version of Tecmo Super Bowl, and would spend another 16 years at the company, taking over leadership of Ninja Gaiden development team Team Ninja in 2001 and rising to the rank of executive officer in 2004. But in 2006 he was removed from that position after being accused of sexual harassment that began in 2003. A Tokyo court cleared him of the charges in 2007.

He left Tecmo in 2008, suing the company for ¥148 million (about $1.4 million) for unpaid bonuses. He also filed suit against then-company president Yoshimi Yasuda for “unreasonable and disingenuous statements” made in the workplace. He went on to form Valhalla Entertainment, which would release Wii U exclusive Devil’s Third in 2015. He left the company in 2017 and returned to game development in 2021 with the founding of Itagaki Games. It’s unclear if any game he worked on at the studio will ever see the light of day.

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“Not everyone has to be living on the edge like I am. I think that would be a problem too, if that was the case,” Itagaki said in a 2011 interview with Game Developer (then Gamasutra) discussing the types of creative personalities he wanted to work with. 

In it, he shared a philosophy that—for better or worse—seems to embody his roller coaster of a career. “Being confident is something that comes internally,” he said. “It has to come from your past. Something that 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 a 28-year-old daughter.