A co-founder of Pokémon developer Game Freak is leaving the studio to join The Pokémon Company – moving away from developing the games and looking at the franchise more widely.
Masuda co-founded Game Freak and programmed and composed music for the original Pokémon Red and Green (and later Blue) games before directing later entries, starting with 2002’s Ruby and Sapphire.
Junichi Masuda will begin his new role as chief creative fellow and use his “deep understanding of the Pokémon brand to develop new services and products”.