There are many reasons to make video games, but one of the funner ones is the hope that one day you’ll be able to make your own video game crossover with another franchise in some capacity. And for the fighting game genre, there have been many big and small crossovers over the years. One of the more full fledged ones was Street Fighter X Tekken, which was a full unification of their universes. One meant to get a “counterpart” with Tekken X Street Fighter, which has been in development for many years now. But, because of the success of Tekken 7, its fate is officially in doubt.
True, its release has been in doubt for a while, but now, in an interview with VGC, series lead Katsuhiro Harada has said that while he’s up for it, it may not be allowed to release if finished:
“Yes, I am emotionally up for it,” he said. “I still want to release the game. However, as much as I want to proceed with the project, things have changed a lot since 2012. So I need to get approval and I need to speak to Capcom again as well — they may say ‘no’ now.”
And as noted earlier, Tekken 7 did very well for itself, which surprised many, including Harada:
“Traditionally, the life cycle of a fighting game is very short – maybe one or two years and then you make a sequel. But Tekken 7 is very successful as a service game with its DLC. That makes it much harder to justify releasing another game, while Tekken 7 is still doing so well.”
So what it sounds like is that it’s not really a “completion” problem, but rather, a money problem. If the game comes out, it could hurt the main Tekken games, which are doing well right now. Or, if it comes out and isn’t received well, it could REALLY hurt the main Tekken and Street Fighter titles. So whether Tekken X Street Fighter ever arrives is really a mystery.
