Dropping within days of each other, new trailers for both Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 demonstrate why classic fighting games will never really go out of fashion.
Open-world adventure RPGs have been the genre of choice for gamers over the past few years, powered by majorly successful titles like Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War. First-person shooters always go hard when it comes to commercial success, reiterated by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 making $1.2 billion in just a few days. And, well, there’s always going to be a deep love of competitive sports games like FIFA and NBA 2K.
Fighting games, on the other hand, is a challenging genre to get across due to the same-same, iterative nature of iconic series like Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Street Fighter. It also says a lot that we don’t actually get many new properties when it comes to fighters. It’s often just these three wildly successful franchises chugging along with updated rosters, different combat stages and oddly structured story modes.
You might get the odd new intellectual property like Killer Instinct and Def Jam Vendetta, but for the most part
Street Fighter 6
Street Fighter 6 was announced earlier this year with the first official trailer for the classic fighter dropping around June. One of Capcom’s most successful properties has been in limbo for quite a while now, so seeing that there’s a new Street Fighter game on the way has understandably tugged at the nostalgia strings for a lot of 30-somethings.
A new Street Fighter trailer reveals that the game will be released on June 2, 2023, bringing with it what looks like the most colourful and experimental entry in the ongoing series, with a healthy list of new characters matching up with old favourites like Ruy, Ken, Blanka and Dhalsim. New on the roster are the likes of boxer Dee Jay, a chic-looking hipster fighter named Manon, a rather well-postured man called JP and the muscly Marisa.
Game director Takayuki Nakayama has gone on record before saying Street Fighter 6 was made to be as accessible as possible with a pick-up-and-play approach to win casual gamers over to the seminal fighting series. Avoiding “tricky button combinations” seems to be a major part of the new design, with streamed one-button controls so you can perform better, more devastating moves without having to think on the spot.
The trailer also reveals a bit of World Tour, which is the game’s dedicated story mode. While that doesn’t look nearly as exciting as the traditional 1v1 fights, it looks like Capcom are taking a step in the right direction by stripping the seriousness out of fighting games and having a bit of fun with it.
Tekken 8
I daresay Bandai Namco’s Tekken 8 looks like the superior of the two, with a more chaotic, simplistic approach to fighting as well as richer, more rounded graphics when compared to the cartoonish appeal of Street Fighter 6.
The trailer is also a bit more exciting and action-packed, again stacked with nostalgia thanks to a close look at classic characters like Paul, King, Jack-8 and Lars. Fans of the series have been speculating heavy about crowd-favourite Eddy Gordo returning for the eight Tekken, but there’s been no confirmation of the Brazilian capoeira fighter as of yet.
There has, however, been a look at a few new characters joining the battle between the Mishima and Kazama families, and Tekken’s always been quite creative and fluid when it comes to its fighters.
The Tekken 8 trailer doesn’t, however, reveal a release date. So while we know that Street Fighter 6 is coming in June 2023, a release window for Tekken 8 is unclear.
The Future Of Fighting Games
While Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6 look like they’ll be holding things down quite nicely for fighting games, we are yet to hear any news about a new Mortal Kombat game. Not that the franchise needs the success after all, considering how well the latest movie adaptation has gone down as well as there being a sequel on the way.
While The Last of Us and even God of War are getting TV adaptations, it’s also important to remember that some of the earliest examples of video games merging with Hollywood have been fighting games.
Mortal Kombat spawned two incredibly cheesy – but kind of fun – movies back in the 90s and there has even been a woeful big-screen adaptation of Street Fighter (starring Kylie Minogue). Also on the cards is a possible Streets of Rage movie by the same team behind John Wick.
Street Fighter 6 will be released for Xbox Series X|S, PS5 and PC in June 2023. Tekken 8 will also be released on all these platforms but a release date is yet to be confirmed.
