I released Korataki on May 11, 2006. It was commissioned for BioWare’s Mass Effect series, but it was also published through Typodermic at the same time. The initial release was a single Regular weight, upright only. The design was influenced by the ultramodern style of the 1970s typeface China/Chimes, with wide, geometric letterforms suited to science fiction settings. That first version included basic Cyrillic support and a set of katakana characters.

In 2009 I expanded the family by adding four more upright weights—Ultra-Light, Extra-Light, Light, and Bold. Italics were still missing at that point. In 2014 I introduced italics across the family, improved kerning, and removed the katakana characters, which I considered substandard. orataki was never released for free. In 2009 it was also licensed for Capcom’s Spyborgs, another instance of it being used in video games.

On July 20, 2021, I refreshed the family but did not add new features; it was mostly to keep the set current. The most recent change came on November 12, 2024, with version 3.2. That update reorganized the weight naming system: Book became Light, Light was renamed Extra-Light, Extra-Light became Thin, and Ultra-Light was renamed Hairline.

Korataki remains most closely associated with the Mass Effect trilogy, where it appeared prominently, but it has also seen some use in other media.