It's nearly 2 months after the release of Tekken 8, what's the next fighting game you want to see get announced?

Dear fighting game fans in the Giant Bomb forums

So far what I've heard about Tekken 8, its gameplay is pretty fun, with 5 new characters being introduced but fewer playable characters at launch compared to its predecessor compared to Tekken 7 (Base Game). Also, Hunter X Hunter: Nen X Impact was announced on January 6th 2024 and will be demonstrated in EVO Japan 2024.

It's up to you to share your opinions on Tekken 8, so if you ask me what the next fighting game I want to see announced, I'd say BlazBlue 5 (Taking place after the events of BlazBlue Central Fiction), even though Toshimichi Mori (BlazBlue writer & producer) has left Arc System Works since September 25th, 2022, I'm curious to see how well the next story writer & producer is going to be.

I haven't bought Tekken 8, I was very tempted but also I'm trash at fighting games and dont want to play full price for it.

BUT I do likes fighting games. There are three I'd like to see announced:

1. Soul Calibur - I know 6 was released only a few years ago but I want one with crossplay.

2. Virtua Fighter - The game needs some love and the fans deserve it.

3. Bloody Roar - Thanks Jan, for reminding me this game existed.

Ignoring games that I would personally want but aren't ever going to happen (BRING US WAR GODS 2 YOU COWARDS) the obvious answer has to be a new Killer Instinct.

Killer Instinct 2013 is really underappreciated, for a variety of reasons ranging from it being Xbox One exclusive at launch at a time when that console was getting backlash to the fact that there were so few characters at launch and it took time to build out.

However, it still has a following to this day and the best thing about it is how DIFFERENT it is from every other fighting game out there now. From its weird Shadow Labs stuff to the fascinating cameos (which have become more common in recent years in games like Mortal Kombat) to the varied mechanics between the characters, it's just like nothing else and it would be great to get another one, this time fully multiplatform (since Microsoft seems willing to do that with smaller games) and built by Iron Galaxy from the ground up.

They recently did a remaster of the 2013 game and hopefully that was in preparation for a new entry. But I kind of doubt it because the remaster doesn't seem to have made a big splash.

Soulcalibur VI is a2018 fighting video game

2. Virtua Fighter - The game needs some love and the fans deserve it.

They put out a new version of 5 in 2021 (so ACTUALLY just a few years ago) with a bunch more costumes and I have a feeling that's going to be it, at least for awhile. Sega has so many moribund franchises. On the other hand Sega is in the Yakuza business and the VF games show up there (and there's a Yakuza pack for the new version of 5) so it's not impossible.

3. Bloody Roar - Thanks Jan, for reminding me this game existed.

This was a Hudson game and so it's owned by Konami.

You can figure out the rest.

I loved these games and the first 2 came to PSN during the PS3 era so we might see emulated versions of 1 and 2 on PSN some day but other than that...

It's too bad because it was one of my favorite PS1 fighting series. A gimmick that actually worked and much more 3D than most "3D" fighters.

But why didn't you say POWERSTONE?!?!

@bigsocrates: Oh god, has it really been that long? I'm wilting away right now.

As far as Powerstone is concerned, I never owned a Dreamcast so I may have played that game, like, once in my life.

Also, Powerstone is basically Smash Brothers with health bars.

@chamurai: You never owned a Dreamcast? No wonder you have 100 misses in Guess the Game, heathen!

Powerstone is definitely not Smash with health bars. It does have items and stage hazards, but other than that it doesn't play much like Smash at all. For one thing it's fully 3D. For another Powerstone 1 was a 2 player fighter. It's honestly much closer to the current crop of 3D anime fighters like My Hero's One Justice than it is to something like Smash. But unlike those anime fighters it's actually a really good fighting game series!

Not that My Hero's One Justice is truly terrible, but some of that style definitely are.

@bigsocrates: I almost forgot about the Killer Instinct franchise and it's going to be on its 30th anniversary by October 28th, 2024, yeah I still prefer the Killer Instinct series more than the Mortal Kombat series, because of the gameplay style, characters, stages and soundtracks.

Edit: The original Killer Instinct theme is still awesome!

@chamurai: For Tekken 8, I suggest you wait for its price to drop.

By the way, that's a nice wish list of these fighting game franchises that you want their respective future installments to be announced.

Edit: Perhaps you can wait for Tekken 8 to be released on Xbox Game Pass (If you play on Xbox Series X/S) or PS Plus Extra/Deluxe (If you play on PlayStation 5).

Dead or Alive 7 i guess, DOA6 was amazing and while i did put plenty of time into it Tekken 7 became the most important fighting game during its time, so it's just natural to go where the player base is. I don't know what DOA would have to do to grow a larger audience other than just make new entries and hope for the best, DOA6 did everything right it's just stigma holding it back.

My joke answer that i've been putting out for a while is i want a fighting game based on the Battlefield franchise, working at DICE must be exhausting after making the same sort of game for 22 years, i'd like them to take a break and make something else and a CQC military themed fighting game would be a weird change, like when Rockstar made a very well received table tennis game.

@cikame: DOA6 did not do anything right. It had an extremely predatory pricing model and confusing season pass stuff that basically never went on sale below 50%. And that's not just including pervy costumes, there were characters mixed in.

Of course now predatory pricing schemes are basically standard practice among fighting games so the biggest issue would probably be the stigma and its small player base, many of whom are not as seriously into fighting games as something like Tekken. It's an uphill battle to capture market share like this unless you're a known IP, which is why basically all the new entries into the fighting genre are based on some kind of pre-existing IP. Gone are the days of Toshinden when you could just put a motley crew of OC together and still get good sales.

International Karate+ but a Battle Royal with 100 Karate fellas trying desperate to figure out where the hit detection sweet spot is.

I wouldn't mind finally playing a Killer Instinct. I don't watch a lot of fighting games but the Xbox One version was the first one I took notice of. It's a fun spectator sport but I want to know how that feels in the hand.

Something with the courage and creativity to bring something new to the genre as opposed to everyone just making the same game for the last 30 years.

@bigsocrates: I was referring to the game itself, roster, stages, modes, graphics, healthy amount of unlocks, polish, netcode, it did everything right.

I never understood the weird backlash about the mtx, i remember articles reporting that "YOU CAN SPEND OVER $1,000 ON DOA6 DLC!!" but... it's costumes... an optional cosmetic, the season passes were mostly just costume bundles where you could get a new character or two and 50-70 costumes for around £70 but you can buy anything you want individually so... don't buy the season pass? That's the sort of thing i'd describe as a nothing burger, having lots of optional costumes is not predatory there's no tricks or gacha or luck based anything in the game, if you walk into a shoe shop and leave with 30 pairs of shoes that's your problem.

There's 4-6 free unlockable costumes with a few colour variations, alternate hairstyles and glasses for each character just by playing, which is more generous than any other fighting game except for Tekken with its customisation, there's also the Core Fighters free to play option but i don't know what comes with that.

The only thing about DOA6 i will not defend is its Koei premium price, £54.99 for DOA6 is high and you should try and find it lower than that, since then it's become more normal to charge that much, Tekken 8 is the same price, but in 2019 it was high and because Koei think they are Nintendo they haven't dropped the price except for sales, it is currently £10.99.

@cikame: Characters themselves are also very expensive, and people generally don't like to have stuff in the game that's locked out at high MTX tiers. You said you didn't understand why it didn't break out of its niche and the pricing model is a big reason. And it is predatory because they KNOW there are people who can't help themselves and need to have all the DLC, and they proceed to make a lot of very expensive DLC with weird pricing models to try to extract as much value as they can....which then turns others off.

This is a Koei Tecmo issue throughout their various games (definitely true for the Warriors series if it's not based on a licensed IP) and it's one of the reasons their games tend to be niche.

The focus on costumes and such also helps create the stigma and drive off the serious players. DOA just presents itself as this vehicle for expensive costume DLC.

I'm a simple man

I want:

Darkstalkers 4

Marvel Vs Capcom 4, as redemption from the disaster that was Infinite.

Capcom Vs. SNK 3.

A modern version of Karate Champ with modern day graphics and overall presentation.

Tekken Vs. Street Fighter. Tekken 7 proved it could be done with both Capcom and SNK licenses. The game is now long overdue.

Virtual Fighter 6

And while I agree a new fighting game series would be nice, the truth is, the gaming industry is cutthroat right now. If you follow the FGC long enough, you'll know that new fighting games with new ideas are coming out almost every year, and they are dead on arrival, not because the games are bad, but because, like live services games, most fighting game fans only care about SF, MK, Tekken, and so on. Even Soul Calibur and DOA are slowly dying off, but you could make an argument that this is also the fault of those gaming jumping the shark and becoming something unrecognizable now.

Somebody wants a new Bushido Blade.

@shindig: There have been several indie attempts at that. None have been nearly as good as the original because they haven't really done anything with the crippled limb system in that game, where you could be knocked to your knees but still potentially pull off the win.

Bushido Blade was the best fighting game for scrub multiplayer sessions because no matter how good someone was there was always a chance they could get caught slipping, and rounds were fast so people didn't have to spend a long time waiting for another chance.

Those kinds of games just don't make economic sense from big publishers anymore though.

Powerstone was also pretty novel, and there have been some indie attempts to capture that idea too, but without Capcom's polish and resources it just doesn't hit the same.

Maybe what we really want back is the spirit of the late 90s and early 2000s, made impossible because games are so expensive to make these days (at least for the big companies) that they just can't be as weirdly creative.

I think I just want to see something new in the fighting game space made with a good-ish budget and an interesting cast of characters. Bonus points if it's not laser-focused on the tournament crowd with a decent single-player. Fuck, maybe I just want another World Tour mode from SF. I don't know.

Can we not just enjoy tekken for 5 minutes

@shindig: Never played it, but as long as it's not a derivative of Street Fighter, go for it.

@av_gamer: Nice list of your wish list of fighting games, for the Marvel Vs Capcom series, this makes me want to think back to Saori Hayami's Japanese voice-acting for Hsien-Ko/Lei Lei from Darkstalkers/Vampire series in Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

I also appreciate her voice acting for other fighting game characters like Mai Natsume (BlazBlue series), and Orie (Under-Night In-Birth).

Edit: If you also ask me what my favorite Saori Hayami's voice role is, I'd say Carpaccio from the Girls und Panzer anime series.

I'd like to see a new Sould Calibur. As I understand it, 6 sold pretty well but not as much as Namco wanted it to.

Killer Instinct was a great game made on a shoestring budget. Microsoft needs to let Iron Galaxy make a new one, with a bunch of cash this time.

Bushido Blade has provided inspiration for a lot of good games, but none have quite lived up to it. They forget injured limbs for one, but also the opportunities for faping about. Levels were multi leveled so you could run around like a jackass if you wanted, and I probably spent as much time chopping down bamboo as I did fighting my opponents. It was an important piece of the experience.

Capcom early 3D fighters. I'm lumping a lot of these together because they had a similar feel to them. Stuff like Rival Schools, Tech Romancer, Star Gladiator and such. Games that played much like their 2D fighters, but with side-stepping. I don't know what modern gamers have against side-stepping.

Bloody Roar. I wasn't into this series back in the day. Thought it was kinda mid, or weak-sauce as us sophisticated 90's teens used to say. But I had a lot of fun with Primal Fury recently. Maybe my nostalgia for the era allows me to overlook it's shortcomings now, maybe Primal Fury is just a better game than the first two, or maybe sophisticated teenage Judaspete was just an idiot.

New 3D fighter IP. I get that 3D makes things a lot more complicated, and the modern fanbase has expectations set by series that have been iterating for decades now, but I wish new entries in the genre were attempted more often.

People who say Powerstone is just smash erk me as much as people who say shemnue is bad and is just a weaker yakuza...The games look like they are something at the quickest of glances but their different. I get it though if you never got dreamcast and had that wonder of the mass of cool ideas they did and got little fan fair for then yeah all the games seem ehh...and they take time to get into today so a glace will have you thinking why did this even get good reviews. As someone who still plays powerstone 2. Powerstone leaks said capcom is planning to make it in a year or two. Hope it has online play. Nostalgia may make it sell well though imagine reviews will be spicy as most young reviewers wont get it. They lol, will likely call it a bad Smash brothers. I recall even jeff said given the option he'd rather play powerstone than smash during a fighter rank. Made a Ayame main shed a tear.

Oh and what's special about power stone, no game has been able to come close to matching it in the way it does things for all these years kinda like crazy taxi in that fans got into game creation to make their own close to it and its still never got there. Its not lucrative enough for big studios to care and i think its a gold mind waiting to be digged. Like a good steath game. Some got close and areana fighter seem to not get it as they feel more like regular fighters with extra steps and overly flashy. Im glad dbz fighters showed areana fighters would be better games if 2d, though they might not appeal to their mass appeal anime fan crowd that only plays anime games (from what i've heard)

@cikame:

I see what you mean. Yeah, the micros hurt it and the negativity over its big.Brea..selling points. AKA the skimpy outfits or whatever. That no longer really flies well today, (if you wanna be taken more serious as a fighter). Honestly even by DOA2 the sexy appeal was losing its audience and i just ignored it since the gameplay was good but i heard others hated it and found it distracting. I think doa's counter system is great along with its out of ring transitions. But if im honest with myself they didnt utilize out of ring enough, they sat on their lurrels with making sequels different when stuff like soul calibur and tekken added tons of modes and characters. DOA focused on their woman and pushing that. The fighter is still solid and i'd argue more fun to play as its fluid and attacks transition in a way i like vs Mortal kombat 11 (which takes more time but they do transition well too just dont have it in me to ever get that good) or That DC one.

I think the micros were as you said a bit over pushed as a reason to hate the game but also kinda was deserved. It just felt icky. I play the free version and the fact they still after all this time lock out so many characters screams they just don't care and want cosmetics money. They could just give all the characters to free players and have cosmetics then have a lively community instead its tons of diehard fans that wipe any normal players.

Overall ill be surprised if DOA last much longer and it hurts as a fan. I don't want the world to just be Street fighter, Tekken, MK, and a few really good anime 2d fighters and maybe a lucky indie for the rest of days. But game creation seems to be so expensive and unwieldy and expectations high that were getting the conservative approach were seeing in the movie big budget industry...go with the safe bet, and people aren't biting for the not safe ones as much while complaining that things that are original IP aren't coming out. :P

make a third one, you fucking cowards

@judaspete: Awesome choices! I also cannot imagine what a new 3D fighting game intellectual property should look like regarding the story setting. Oh, I would like to mention that if the next Super Smash Bros for Switch's successor gets announced, it would be good to see one of the Soul Calibur characters appear.

@topcyclist: While DOA isn't shy about its ladies, they aren't the only ones.