Where do we go from here?
Tekken 7 concluded its fourth season of content this week with the release of Lidia Sobieska, with players now wondering what the future of the fighting game holds.
One fan in particular decided to go to the source to try and find an answer to whether Tekken 7 or Soul Calibur 6 would receive additional DLC, and Katsuhiro Harada took the time to give them an answer to the matter.
Since he’s obviously not going to be announcing Tekken Season 5 on Twitter himself, the Bandai Namco boss gives a pretty open answer to how they went about the game.
“Hi. In the first place, our plan was to finish it in Season 2, but it didn’t end in Season 2 (the whole market has changed to play the title longer than it used to be),” Harada wrote on Twitter. “… So I don’t know about the future.”
Hi.
In the first place, our plan was to complete it in Season 2, but it didn’t end in Season 2 (the whole market has changed to play the title longer than it used to).
… So I don’t know about the future. Https://t.co/gCVi9flSSS– Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 27, 2021
With Lidia only released a few days ago, it would be plausible that a potential Season 5 wouldn’t get the green light just yet due to the higher ups, although Harada certainly has a game plan for both scenarios.
Many felt from the start of Season 4’s announcement that this latest pass might just be the last, as it featured fewer characters and content compared to the others with just two fighters, stages, and technically the updated grid code.
Whatever the next project from the Tekken team, it’s almost certainly pretty far into the development phase, especially given the relatively small season 4, although it all comes down to Bamco deciding to pull that trigger.
The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are available now, so we’re completely open to the next generation of fighting games, although there have been mostly only ports so far.
Harada’s specifically said in the past that the arrival of new hardware may be the best chance of selling more fighting games, as most major developers have moved to releasing only one new item per console generation.
However, there is good argument for continuing to support Tekken 7 with more content for now, as the game managed to hit 7 million copies sold and that last million all in the last 6 months or so.
People are still playing Tekken 7. People are still buying Tekken 7, so it would make sense if Bandai Namco wanted to go out for a final season blast like Street Fighter 5 is currently running.
However, Soul Calibur 6’s prospects of hosting a third season are less likely for a few reasons.
Unlike Tekken and Dragon Ball FighterZ, Bandai Namco never said exactly how much SC6 managed to sell even two and a half years later, which isn’t exactly the most promising sign.
We are currently almost four months away from the release of Hwang as the latest, without much talk about the game. In fact, Bandai Namco previously said that Hwang would be the last character before retracting that statement
Of all of Bandai Namco’s main fighting games, nothing has been announced on the horizon, so we’re a bit in the dark as to whether the publisher is ready to move on or continue to support what’s out there now.
Dragon Ball FighterZ was specifically mentioned to be slated for more balance updates this year, although they didn’t say anything about that either.
This also kind of ties into other things Harada has been talking about lately, including the difficulties of developing fighting games in the modern landscape and how he thinks no one can make a great fighting game for $ 10 million anymore.