Hideaki Itsuno has announced that he is departing from Capcom. According to Itsuno, he’ll be leaving “at the end of August 2024” after being with the company for “30 years and five months.”
Notably, the day in which he made this announcement is August 31, the last day of August 2024. This effectively means that today is his last day with Capcom, but it seems that he still has plans to continue as a game developer.
Within the final part of his farewell message, he told fans to “please stay tuned for my next creation.”
In terms of fighting games, Hideaki Itsuno is most famous for his involvement on Street Fighter Alpha, Rival Schools: United By Fate, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Power Stone, Power Stone 2, Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000, Project Justice, Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001, and Capcom Fighting Evolution.
Though he wasn’t the creator of the Devil May Cry series, he effectively took over as the “Replacement Director” starting with Devil May Cry 2. Itsuno would also later develop the Dragon’s Dogma series.
There’s been some conflicting information that indicated that Itsuno had actually planned to leave Capcom after the DmC: Devil May Cry reboot. Supposedly, he remained with the company after he was promised the opportunity to develop Devil May Cry 5 how he wanted it, and he also had a wish list of fighting games that he was hopeful to someday develop.
He would ultimately succeed in developing Devil May Cry 5, but it seems that he was never able to return to develop Rival Schools 3, Street Fighter Alpha 4, Power Stone 3, and Capcom vs SNK 3 like he had once hoped. However, older games from these franchises were recently announced to be packaged within the Capcom Fighting Collection 2, seemingly indicating that some of these titles may actually have a future even without Hideaki Itsuno.
Check out Hideaki Itsuno’s farewell message below:
I have an announcement for all my followers:
At the end of August 2024, I will be leaving Capcom after 30 years and 5 months. Thank you for your long-term support of the games and characters I have been responsible for.
I hope you will continue to support Capcom’s games and cahracters. From September, I will start developing a new game in a new environment. I hope to create fun, beautiful games that are as memorable as, or even more memorable than, the ones I have created so far.
Please stay turned for my next creation!
Hideaki Itsuno
— Hideaki Itsuno (@tomqe) August 31, 2024