Former Koei Tecmo leading executive, Team Ninja and Valhalla Studios founder Tomonobu Itagaki has passed away at the age of 58 years old. The sad news broke on the legendary game developer’s own Facebook page, where a farewell post was published through an entrusted third party. The cause of death, as of this moment, is still unknown.
The Facebook post has a sad tone, giving way to speculation that Tomonobu Itagaki half-expected his time to come sooner rather than later. Known for his blunt, 100% no-holding-back nature, the Japanese legend portrayed a strong, stoic figure in the industry, highly contrasting with the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto’s happy-go-lucky demeanor or Hideo Kojima’s more quiet nature.
No, Tomonobu Itagaki was the “larger-than-life” type of guy. Here’s his full farewell post translated:
Words to leave.
Tomonobu Itagaki
The light of my life is finally about to go out. The fact that this post has been published means that the time has finally come. I am no longer in this world. (This final post has been entrusted to someone dear to me.)
My life was a constant series of battles. I kept winning. I also caused a lot of trouble. I take pride in having fought through it all, following my own convictions. I have no regrets. I only feel deep sorrow that I couldn’t deliver a new work to all my fans. Sorry.
That’s just how it is. So it goes.
Tomonobu Itagaki’s career spans over 30 years, starting in 1992 when he joined Tecmo and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually taking over the development of several of the company’s franchises. As the creator of the Dead or Alive fighting franchise, he was often put on the spot for representing women in rather…exposed ways, especially during the release of spin off titles such as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, which saw the fighting game’s female cast taking part on minigames that are well known in Japan TV.
He was, however, better known as the director that revived the Ninja Gaiden brand during his work at Koei Tecmo. While not the original creator of the brand, Tomonobu Itagaki was inspired by it in order to create a more “hardcore” experience that we came to know and love today. Thus, Ninja Gaiden Black was born, adopting the extreme difficulty and violent nature for which the games are known today. He was, at one point, the leader of the company’s hi-end development department, but left it entirely in 2008 after suing KT for withholding payment.
Later, he founded Valhalla Studios, through where he launched a game called Devil’s Third: the end product did not fare well both in press reviews and user critics, rating a 44% success on sites like OpenCritic. The entire company was dissolved a few years later and the executive left the industry for a while, before coming back to create Itagaki Games.
Work-wise, Tomonobu Itagaki was one of the few developers who was heavily involved in all of his projects, immersing himself into a more hands-on approach even as his position as director would put him at a place where he could just delegate functions to others. This work ethic has brought him to be known as a gamedev who cared about his audience. Notable cases was when he pushed back Ninja Gaiden’s release on Xbox 360 just so he could make the most of the original Xbox version (not leaving owners of the previous console hanging with compatibility problems, for instance).
In his personal life, Tomonobu Itagaki has made public how much he enjoyed “his vices” — those being smoking, drinking, gambling and coffee. In an interview given to long-defunct website 1UP back in 2010 (thanks, VG247!), he even stated he couldn’t make a game without partaking in those. And at least one interview at EGM earlier than that stated, in no uncertain terms, that his “ability to cram as much alcohol as he can in his body” was “superhuman”.
He also famously stated that teh Japanese gaming industry was “dying” at some point, encouraging Japanese developers to interact more often with their Western counterparts, in order to find new elements of inspiration, while at the same time claiming he was one of the few to do so.
His passing received sympathy from Team Ninja’s official social media accounts, fellow game directors (such as Tekken’s head Katsuhiro Harada) and even some former journalists — chief of which, James Mielke, former Electronic Gaming Monthly editor and one of the people who were blessed enough to interview Itagaki on several occasions.
