Tomonobu Itagaki, best known for creating the Dead or Alive franchise and for the revival of Ninja Gaiden as a 3D hack-and-slash action game back in 2004, has died aged 58.
As spotted by Wario64 on social media, Itagaki's Facebook account was updated earlier today with a post which (according to Wario64's machine translation) he asked "someone special" to release when the "light of [his] life is about to run out".
Itagaki says that the fact the post has appeared on his Facebook page "means it's finally time" and that he's "no longer in this world". He says he "stand[s] by [his] beliefs" and has "no regrets", except for "not being able to deliver [his] new work", for which he apologizes to his fans.
News of Itagaki's passing was subsequently confirmed by Team Ninja, the studio he founded in 1995, as well as by Itagaki's friend James Mielke on Bluesky. No cause of death was announced in any of the places where Itagaki's death was confirmed.
Tomonobu Itagaki joined the games industry in 1992, where his inaugural project was the Super Famicom port of sports game Tecmo Super Bowl. What would arguably serve as his...
