By Veerender Singh Jubbal. For the past three decades, Tekken has been the dominant king of 3D fighting games. With a cheesy soap opera narrative, diverse characters, and a variety of worldwide martial arts represented, Tekken has become a global phenomenon with lasting staying power. But how has Tekken managed to stay on top amid a perpetually shifting gaming landscape? Its characters, identified by different ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities are represented with real-life martial arts styles, something other games like Street Fighter leave more as an afterthought.
While in Street Fighter , characters like Makoto or Juri are canonically known to be adept in karate or taekwondo, respectively, their specific martial arts expertise is not explicitly at the forefront like they are in Tekken. Capcom: Infinite' Was a Flop. Fire Recovery Efforts. Instead, attributing new styles to culturally diverse characters is part of the fun. Inspired by the spectacle, and looking for a new type of character to create, Harada introduced the karateka Lidia Sobieska, a stoic and traditionalist fighter β who also happens to be the in-game Prime Minister of Poland.
Lidia would return to the franchise in Tekken 8 as part of another downloadable content release in summer of Since the original game in , Harada has been pivotal to the series, taking on many different roles throughout the years. From there, he took the reins of the series as a director for Tekken 3 , Tekken 4 and Tekken 5 Now the executive producer, he remains the key creative mind behind the franchise, as well as its public face.
Suddenly, a game considered globally-minded to its core was, well, no longer global. The game was eventually released internationally on consoles in , but the rift had already been made β especially within its esports scene, given that the majority of the world was two years behind the competition. Western fans of the franchise even had to supplement this lack of experience by ingesting YouTube videos in order to learn combos with zero hands-on practice.
The two-year void of data, replays, and active experience also created uneasiness for professional esports players who still attempted to pursue Tekken 7 at a competitive level β even though the odds were very much stacked against them. FaZe Clan originally started as a trio of Call of Duty players known for garnering prominence with their YouTube trick-shot videos in Modern Warfare 2. Bennett has competed in more than international fighting game events in his more than 20 years playing Tekken , but the disastrous state of the competitive side of Tekken 7 was a low point.
