Tekken 8 boss Katsuhiro Harada helps bereaved fan preserve AI 'ghost' of their dead brother

Tekken 8 executive game director Katsuhiro Harada has offered a helping hand to a fan whose brother unexpectedly died not long after the game released, explaining how to preserve an AI-driven "ghost" of the brother's Tekken character.

Harada was responding (on Twitter) to a Reddit thread from a Tekken fan going by the name Melodic_Insect1356. In that Reddit thread, the user explained that his 26-year-old brother had recently "passed away suddenly in his room." He explained that his brother "was a huge Tekken fan and had been putting so many hours in grinding, trying to rank up.

"It was our hope that we could eventually join local meetups here in Texas as brothers, but unfortunately we will never get that chance."

Can AI ghosts be permantly saved? My brother just passed suddenly... from r/Tekken

But his brother's time spent grinding had generated a ghost: essentially an AI replication of his playstyle that mimicked his strengths and weaknesses. Melodic_Insect's concern was that the ghost would eventually be deleted after he had been inactive for too long: "I would still like to play against my 'brother' from time to time. Even if it's a poor imitation..."

The post was brought to Harada's attention on Twitter and clearly earned his sympathy, because he returned just a few hours later with advice he had gotten directly from Tekken 8's (non-executive) game director Kohei Ikeda: "My deepest sympathy. If you download and save your brother's ghost locally, you can still play against it anytime even if the data is lost from the server."

Harada continued: "Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

I have personally sent message cards and other messages to many ceremonies. If it helps someone feel any better, please tell [Melodic_Insect] to contact me."

It's a sweet gesture from Harada, and tear-jerkingly reminiscent of the famous story of the son who found his father's racing ghost in an old Xbox game. Harada's message reached its destination, too. On Reddit, Melodic_Insect wrote that he had sent Harada and Ikeda personal messages of thanks for their help in keeping his brother's memory alive.

In his original post, Melodic_Insect wrote "thank you to Mr.Harada and the whole Tekken team for giving me and my brother one last great month of joy together. The last thing I saw him doing the night before was playing this game. I'm happy he got to play it before he had to go."