Katuba’s Poacher is on the show floor at Tokyo Game Show 2026, with solo developer Joe Yu Studio showing its hand-drawn action roguelite at the Red Dunes Games booth, Hall 7, Booth N03 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. The game is due for release in early 2027 on PC.
Publisher Red Dunes Games calls it a colorful single-player boss rush where the fights and the music are the same system: every boss arrives with its own swing-jazz theme, and its attack patterns are choreographed to land on the beat.
Katuba’s Poacher
A Boss Rush That Keeps Time
Each boss in Katuba’s Poacher has a musical identity of its own, so reading an encounter means reading the rhythm as well as the wind-up frames. The pitch is that a fight should feel like improvisation: unpredictable, reactive and always in motion.
Between bosses, the loop follows roguelite convention. A run sends you into the wilds of Katuba to hunt monsters for bounties and collect loot along the way; materials feed weapon crafting, while skills and traits carry forward to build the hunter between hunts. Rival bounty hunters are tracking you too, so the threat does not end at the boss arena.
The publisher’s feature list adds unique attack patterns per boss, original swing-jazz themes, in-run loot, weapon crafting, skill and trait unlocks, and persistent character growth. Katuba’s Poacher is a single-player title.
Built by One Developer
Joe Yu Studio was founded by Joe Yu in South Korea, and the studio says it builds on the arcade games that inspired him. Katuba’s Poacher is a one-man production, with hand-drawn cartoon visuals and a deliberately loose, goofy animation style that the publisher frames as retro in presentation.
Red Dunes Games is showing other titles at the booth this week, including Samurai Pizza Cats. The Abu Dhabi studio was founded by Mohamed Al Jneibi and Sultan Al Darmaki and focuses on story-driven games for a global audience.
No price or storefront detail is out yet for Katuba’s Poacher. A new trailer is already live. You can check out our Tokyo Game Show 2026 coverage.
Ram Ronquillo
Ram found his love and appreciation for writing in 2015 having started in the gaming and esports sphere for GG Network. He would then transition to focus more on the world of tech which has also began his journey into learning more about this world. That said though, he still has the mentality of "as long as it works" for his personal gadgets.
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