"All the hair on the right side of my body fell out" - how Tekken nearly broke its designer from stress

Game development can be stressful, I'm sure you've heard. The director of fighting game series Tekken yesterday shared an anecdote about how wild that stress can get. Speaking about the release of Tekken 4 in 2001, director Katsuhiro Harada remembered it didn't perform as well as previous games. And the game's relatively weak reception (alongside a lack of support at Bandai Namco) sent his body into a spiral of ill-health from anxiety. "I was under so much stress at the time that I developed a mysterious condition where all the hair on the right side of my body fell out - just the right side," said the director in a post on Xitter. "Even the hair on my arms, eyebrows, and eyelashes disappeared." Read more

Mar 25, 2025 - 13:12
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"All the hair on the right side of my body fell out" - how Tekken nearly broke its designer from stress

Game development can be stressful, I'm sure you've heard. The director of fighting game series Tekken yesterday shared an anecdote about how wild that stress can get. Speaking about the release of Tekken 4 in 2001, director Katsuhiro Harada remembered it didn't perform as well as previous games. And the game's relatively weak reception (alongside a lack of support at Bandai Namco) sent his body into a spiral of ill-health from anxiety.

"I was under so much stress at the time that I developed a mysterious condition where all the hair on the right side of my body fell out - just the right side," said the director in a post on Xitter. "Even the hair on my arms, eyebrows, and eyelashes disappeared."

Read more