Tomonobu Itagaki Farewell

Goodbye Master

October 22, 2025

Got this info through Facebook of all places and there was a cryptic messaged from the Creator. Tomonbu Itagaki passed away at age 58.

The elegaic Facebook post was written by Itagaki to be shared in the event of his death. An English translation was later shared by his compatriot and rival Katsuhiro Harada:

Words I Leave Behind

The flame of my life is finally about to go out.

If this message has been posted, it means that the time has come. I am no longer in this world.

(This final post has been entrusted to someone dear to me.)

My life was a series of battles. And I kept on winning.

I know I caused trouble for many along the way.

But I followed my convictions and fought to the very end.

I have no regrets.

Only one thing weighs on me — I’m deeply sorry to all my fans that I couldn’t bring you a new work. I truly am.

That’s just how it is.

So it goes.

Banobu Itagaki

I am sad to see him go had a lot of fun playing his games on Xbox. I read he was trying to restart development on another game with his new company Itagaki Games but that was shut down. He is sorry to his fans that he could not publish another work.

Remembering DOA and Ninja Gaiden

I remembered playing Dead or Alive Ultimate on my Xbox (The Duke) and later Ninja Gaiden. It was such an action ride Itagaki san brought us on. I felt that his games were hard and it made me want to try and beat it. He never made it easy but he believed the player can.

While he is controversial and has very strong views on action games I appreciate the gameplay and hard difficulty. He also managed to port the same difficulty of Ninja Gaiden to the Ninja Gaiden DS Game.

The Games he made

I remembered Ninja Gaiden you need to coordinate and time the attacks on the enemies, plus the eenemies in NG2 were not stagnant they attacked you even after being severed..

Dead or Alive was great to easy to get in but hard to master. I know he had some arguments with then Tekken Game Design and Characters. But somehow DOA had a strong following when he helmed the series.

Unfortunately I did not play Devil’s Third his Wii U Game which has been taken down.

He was also the one of the few Japanese that supported an American Company during Xbox and XBOX 360 Era. Which is unusual give how popular SONY Playstation was at that time.

I am not sure if these old games can still be played or bought

Final Farewell

He is probably up there in Valhalla right now enjoying a drink and smoke. I bid him farewell and thank you for those good memories through your games.