Shimbori Has Departed from Bandai Namco on Good Terms - Now What?

Yohei Shimbori, legendary 3D fighting game developer, has announced that he is departing from Bandai Namco after several years of working on Tekken 8 making him one of the few wild cards within the 3D side of the FGC. You never know where he might go next, and T8 definitely proved that, but speculation within reason can break it down. Let’s look at what he could do.

There were definitely some missteps with Dead or Alive 6, but maybe this could be viewed as an opportunity of redemption between Koei Tecmo, Team NINJA, Shimbori and the players. Things have cooled off, and at this point, the strong majority of players just want another game.

Here is the direct quote from Shimbori:

I will be leaving Bandai Namco Studio at the end of this month. During my time here, I was involved in various projects, but I was particularly deeply engaged in Tekken 8, mainly without-game elements, and received support from many people, including our customers. I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude. Thank you so much! - Yohei Shimbori

I'm not saying that Hayashi & DOA are a slam dunk, and that the next game is going to happen because he left Bandai Namco. Though I do think that with his experience, pedigree, and a nearly two-decade long resume with Koei Tecmo it would be hard to imagine a world where they couldn't come to some type of agreement. We already know that through leaking (that is public knowledge now) more DOA was originally planned.

It's been over half a decade since Dead or Alive 6 and since then the popularity of the DOA name has spiked higher than it ever has before with people being interested in the fighter while wondering what happened to it and also with major number increases with the popular Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation and impressive import sales with Venus Vacation Prism: Dead or Alive Xtreme.

Dead or Alive 6 is actually still hanging on by a strong thread as I mentioned before with the interest being shown at the EVO 2025 & EVO Japan 2025 side tournaments and being presented at monthly tournaments such as XFS, Hold That, Hoodless Monthly, Z-Axis and many more. Team NINJA still promotes sales for the game, statues and merchandise for the games, assist with tournaments for the game and also posts the character birthdays on social accounts. They don't want the game to be completely forgotten, and Dead or Alive 6 was a Shimbori creation.

I’ll refrain from sharing details for now, but I’ll be moving more freely and taking on new challenges that make the most of my strengths. It will surely take time, but I’ll strive harder to deliver an exciting game, so I’d be delighted if you continue to keep an eye on my progress. - Yohei Shimbori

Yes, there are arguments being made that he could work at Sega with Virtua Fighter 6 which would make him even more robust within the industry, but I don't really see that happening or him getting to work more freely when it's another big corporation. I've also heard Arc System Works, but even if he is interested that is quite a shift but would definitely bring some new challenges.

This second direct quote from Shimbori doesn't exactly imply DOA, but it doesn't exclude it either. I think with some demand, while looking past how you might feel about him and some encouragement (everyone deserves a second chance) could result in something better than "another burnt bridge" from Koei Tecmo & Team NINJA. It would be extremely refreshing to see a fixed relationship instead of a situation that is impossible to repair like the chaos between Koei Tecmo & Tomonobu Itagaki.

Coming back to a relationship with Koei Tecmo would be a new challenge, wouldn't it? Making most of his strengths would be working on DOA as he did for many years. Moving freely could mean going back to the job position he was used to and was more comfortable with rather than doing media and press work. I think this quotation is up for interpretation until he flat out tells us he will not be coming back to Dead or Alive.

 

Theres a lot of layers to unpack here. The tweets are vague atm. What I am afraid of is that he may repeat the stuff he did in the past during development of DOA 6 and Tekken 8.

2025 and we're still scapegoating Shimbori instead of that maidenless bum Nakamura.

Y'all didn't deserve DOA 5.

 

But it's just Uberprinny, isn't it? XD

Haven't really seen anyone else get on Shimbori's case around here in a while... hell, I'd totally wear a "Shimbori did nothing wrong" t-shirt, lol.

But yeah I dont get it... don't tell me people are even pinning all the blame for T8's issues on the guy now -_-' like I said, we don't even know exactly what he contributed, people are like "oh this bit feels like its right out of DOA6, this must be Shimbori's work", which is an easy assumption to make but its still just an assumption. Tekken taking from DOA was a thing before Shimbori.

 

shimbori were given one year salary before leaving KT and at bandai namco it's more expedient because he's not permanent staff.

i think he saying that he's doesn't want to work FG anymore because he want's to broaden his resume just to get a job

 

Not surprised by this. Tekken 8’s dev team looked bloated with too many cooks in the kitchen. Quite a few prominent Calibur devs and other Bamco FG staff were involved in T8 and there are/were competing visions on what the game is supposed to be. Nakatsu, T8 game director, is apparently now reviewing every change and signing off, so hopefully the game will have a more singular, coherent vision in the future.

I doubt Shimbori was involved in much of the decision making. AFAIK he spearheaded the camera mode that was added to the game later but not without a fight and served as technical support on Twitter when the game launched.

My hope was KT/TN would outsource DOA7 to Bamco or collaborate together which might have brought Shimbori back in the fold directing a new title. I guess there’s no fighting game future for Shimbori there at Bamco to do his own thing. Calibur’s dead and not like Bamco care to invest in a new 3D FG IP.

Best of luck to him. Hopefully he will have a project where he can exert more control and direction.

 

My hope was KT/TN would outsource DOA7 to Bamco or collaborate together

A fate worse than death.

 

Not surprised by this. Tekken 8’s dev team looked bloated with too many cooks in the kitchen. Quite a few prominent Calibur devs and other Bamco FG staff were involved in T8 and there are/were competing visions on what the game is supposed to be. Nakatsu, T8 game director, is apparently now reviewing every change and signing off, so hopefully the game will have a more singular, coherent vision in the future.

I doubt Shimbori was involved in much of the decision making. AFAIK he spearheaded the camera mode that was added to the game later but not without a fight and served as technical support on Twitter when the game launched.

My hope was KT/TN would outsource DOA7 to Bamco or collaborate together which might have brought Shimbori back in the fold directing a new title. I guess there’s no fighting game future for Shimbori there at Bamco to do his own thing. Calibur’s dead and not like Bamco care to invest in a new 3D FG IP.

Best of luck to him. Hopefully he will have a project where he can exert more control and direction.

VF would fit him the best, but that IP is hardly stable and I don't really favor the odds of it breaking out of its niche shell with VF6 based on what I've seen currently. He might have a better chance going into the 2D space right now. There are a lot more opportunities there.

 

I see it mentioned a few times here but I completely don’t understand what people could be referring to. What mistake(s) were there in DOA6 aside of getting rid of tag mode?
I just made DOA my main fighting game last year, I played very little of 5 because I favored 6 but use to play a lot of 4, though I would happily give up the break mechanic for tags.

 

A fate worse than death.

Even if Shimbori had his own team at BN to lead the project? I wouldn’t want BN touching the IP otherwise.

 

A fate worse than death.

Yeah, looking at how TN pretend that they make NG4.

 

I see it mentioned a few times here but I completely don’t understand what people could be referring to. What mistake(s) were there in DOA6 aside of getting rid of tag mode?
I just made DOA my main fighting game last year, I played very little of 5 because I favored 6 but use to play a lot of 4, though I would happily give up the break mechanic for tags.

A lot of the mistakes often mentioned basically comprise of the game being released too early and the implementation of the break system making the meta of the game feel shallower to those who came from 5LR. In short, there's very little in the game to help one progress past the intermediate stage and into the higher level echelons and most if not all of those in the higher level were coming from 5LR already in that higher level.

Then there was the feeling that the game just released too early and needed more months to be tested and worked on. I mean, game didn't even launch with online lobbies. Additionally, apparently there was also blowback for Core Fighters being released too soon after launch. Then the DLC rollout and pricing didn't help things as well. Then there was the whole wig fiasco too. It also didn't help that the game was heavily outsourced to KT Vietnam, and even to this day the game just feels under budgeted compared to its predecessors: Character meshes are unoptimized, menu screens are static for the first time since DOA1, non-asynchronous loading hitches exist in the game, most cutscenes are just 720p movie files from an older engine build, lighting is unbalanced, and even the credits of the game are the first time where there's no animation or visuals behind them.

To name a few.

 

Thanks for spelling that all out for me. I didn’t know that the game released w/o online lobbies, that’s a big one for sure.