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interesting not only for the
people playing, but for the people
watching as well,” he adds.
Harada-san is aware that those
familiar with the series will know
what to look for in fights. "We’ve
tried to make it more exciting and
easier to understand for people
who aren’t perhaps as familiar
with Tekken. Some of the game
mechanics are geared choices, for example the
super slow motion – obviously for the player
it’s very exciting in the match, but the people
watching also get that same sort of rush."
There's also the addition of the online
tournament mode. "It’s fun for not only the
super-high-tier players that we have, but also
for a group of friends that might want to get
together and have a tournament of eight
people to find out who’s the best,"
he explains. "The gameplay
mechanics and the way we
develop the game have
definitely been more
recently geared to the
competitive gaming
scene.”
As with previous
instalments in the Tekken
series, you can expect a
bunch of post-release content.
Harada-san hints that
Tekken 7
will include the most post-launch
content of any Tekken game to date.
“With past instalments, we’ve had time-
release mechanics where characters were
added or unlocked a little further down the track.
That was only ever up to maybe two months
after launch, because we did it
for free and we didn’t really
have enough resources
available to go further
than that. More
recently,
we’ve seen
Moreover, the publisher is always trying to
make the game more accessible. “We try to
keep the veteran players happy by adding new
costumes for some of their favourite characters,
and for the newcomers we add new playable
characters so they don’t feel so out of the loop.
We also keep in mind that veteran players
may have honed their skills particularly to one
character, so we try to translate that into the
new instalments as well as adding
new mechanics.”
With such a cemented
community around fighting
games in particular, esports
and tournaments are
always a huge focus in
development, and
Tekken
7
is no different.
“Esports as a category
is a bit of a buzzword,
especially for games like
Tekken,“ notes Harada-san,
who sees the fighting game
genre as something of a proprietor of
the competitive gaming phenomenon itself.
“Fighting games have always had their own
scene where people like to compete against
each other of their own accord. People would
gather in a certain location and battle against
each other to see who’s the best. Therefore, a
lot of effort has been put into developing Tekken
for that kind of audience, and to make sure it’s
up to standard for a competitive environment.
"More recently, with
Tekken 7
, more of
a focus has been put on making sure it’s
a shift in the trends of games in general, that
players are wanting to play games for longer,
and are expecting more content after launch."
The team plans to support the new game a
little longer than previously. "We might look at
things like new modes or characters, or even
balance changes, for a longer period than what
we may have done in the past – perhaps even
in the form of a season pass. We’re also trying
to put more effort into tournaments. We’ve
done some in Japan and the US in the past, and
it’s important to us to be able to help out people
who are organising their own as well.”
53
FEATURE
GAMES
Tekken 7
’s campaign
will serve as
the conclusion
to the Mishima
Saga; the story of
the family feud
between Heihachi
Mishima, Kazuya
Mishima, and Jin
Kazama. Players
will also find out
the origins of the
Devil Gene. Not
to mention
Street
Fighter
’s Akuma
has an additionally
important role…
•
Tekken 7
is out June 2
The way we
develop the game
is definitely... more
geared to the
competitive scene