Long-Overdue TEKKEN X STREET FIGHTER Is Very Unlikely To Happen According To Katsuhiro Harada

Bandai Namco's Tekken X Street Fighter, which was announced alongside Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, was supposed to launch years ago, but it looks like we just received the ultimate proof that the team at Bandai has finally canceled the long-overdue project.

In a recent interview with Video Games Chronicle, Series Lead Katsuhiro Harada confirmed that Bandai has been facing major obstacles during Tekken X Street Fighter's development ever since the project's announcement. “Yes, I am emotionally up for it,” Harada explained. “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.”

“We started the project back in 2012 and the real interesting question then was, what is going to happen when the Tekken team designs characters for Street Fighter? We started creating 3D models [...] – they looked super cool – and the project progressed to about 30% completion," Harada added.

“However, when we were ready to progress further with the project, Capcom released Street Fighter V and then we released Tekken 7. Those titles are some of the best fighting games ever and they became very successful." As a reminder, Tekken 7 launched back in 2015 to very positive reviews.

“So then I started to wonder, do I really want to attempt to compete with these huge titles? It could end up splitting the community. That was a serious consideration from the marketing perspective. So I decided to hold off releasing the game for one or two years. Following that, Tekken 7 is now doing very well as a service game. 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 [...]. That makes it much harder to justify releasing another game, while Tekken 7 is still doing so well," Harada concluded.

While Bandai Namco's Tekken X Street Fighter will probably never happen, you can always try playing Capcom's action-packed take on the ambitious crossover between those two world-famous properties – as 2012's Street Fighter X Tekken is still one of the best-reviewed fighting video games of the decade.

Discover the epic conclusion of the Mishima clan and unravel the reasons behind each step of their ceaseless fight. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, TEKKEN 7 features stunning story-driven cinematic battles and intense duels that can be enjoyed with friends and rivals alike through innovative fight mechanics. Love, Revenge, Pride. Everyone has a reason to fight. Values are what define us and make us human, regardless of our strengths and weaknesses.