Tekken 8 Game Director Has Blocked Arslan Ash

Tekken 8 Game Director Katsuhiro Harada has blocked top pro player Arslan Ash on X (formerly Twitter), infuriating the FGC.

Earlier on April 21st, Arslan Ash shared a screenshot of Harada’s X bio, which showed that he’d been blocked from seeing Harada’s tweets. Arslan then put a bunch of question marks to express his confusion.

Arslan Ash is no stranger to criticizing Tekken 8, especially after developers made questionable changes in Season 2. Now, the esports community believes that Arslan was blocked by Harada for continuing to voice frustrations with the game.

Harada has lashed out at critics in the past, including fans who voiced disdain for Anna’s new look. Harada accused one fan of ‘spreading toxicity’ in the community and ‘disrespecting’ other Anna fans.

This time, however, the FGC felt that Harada had blocked the wrong person — an Evo champion who is considered one of the best in the scene. The community noted that the game must be ‘cooked’ if developers are blocking the ‘GOAT of the game.’ It wasn’t exactly instilling faith in the game.

Said one fan: “Harada and Murray are straight-up sabotaging their own game at this point. Blocking the best Tekken player, zero communication, and ignoring real issues. Instead of listening, they’re shutting people down. It’s embarrassing hey Namco y’all f—ed up big time.”

Added another: “The face of Tekken being blocked by the head of Tekken. Insane, especially when you realise that Arslan could legit stop playing Tekken and go pro in [City of the Wolves] extremely quickly, especially with [Esports World Cup] round the corner.”

In response to the continued backlash on X, Harada responded to the drama in a tweet. He claimed he never meant to block Arslan Ash, adding that it was an ‘operational error.’ Harada then stated that he spoke to the pro in a DM.

While this could be the case, Arslan Ash and other Tekken 8 players are clearly unhappy with the state of the game and won’t stop speaking out about it.