Although Street Fighter x Tekken and Akuma’s arrival in Tekken 7 Fated Retribution may have seemingly come out of left field, the chief developers behind both franchises have been eyeing these collaborations for some time. In a recent interview with Famitsu, Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono and Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Katsuhiro Harada sat down to discuss the past, present, and future of their working relationship.
After taking note of the work the other was doing at their respective company, Harada and Ono began talking seriously around 2007.
“We both wanted to try a collaboration, all the way back then,” Harada stated, according to translations by Source Gaming. The developers would even go as far as to bring the topic up in interviews of the time and, eventually, Ono would push for a formal collaboration. This would results in the release of Street Fighter x Tekken in 2012, but instead of creating a product that enticed both fanbases, the crossover title ended up spawning an entirely new group of players. “That was unexpected,” Ono confided.
Similarly, Akuma’s surprise debut in Tekken 7 was discussed for at least four years before Fated Retribution came to fruition. But that hasn’t drawn any resources away from Bandai Namco’s complementary Tekken x Street Fighter.
“[I]f I were to have Akuma in a serious fight, a battle that Tekken and Street Fighter fans want to see, then I thought ‘I can’t have it happen in a spinoff,’” Harada explained. “For Street Fighter and Tekken to truly face off, I needed the appropriate structure, and because there’s a lot of focus and attention paid to Tekken’s story, I wanted to incorporate it there.”
The mysterious silhouette in the first Tekken 7 trailer was apparently planned to be Akuma all along.
Funny enough, despite Harada’s grand plans to incorporate Akuma into the Tekken universe, his appearance really just comes down to Street Fighter’s decidedly looser focus on story elements. “Wait, wait. Mr. Harada is saying it in his way, but really, we were at a bar and you definitely said ‘Street Fighter almost doesn’t really have a story, so it’s fine,’” Ono jokingly replied.
In the case of these collaborations, both Harada and Ono have found ways to incorporate elements of the other franchise, highlighting strengths and downplaying weaknesses in the process. Whatever comes of their relationship in the future, it’s sure to be an exciting proposition for fighting game fans.
For more of their conversation, which also touches on similarities between Tekken’s Shaheen and Street Fighter’s Rashid, their thoughts on the future of competitive fighting games, and more, visit Source Gaming by following the link below.
Source: Source Gaming, tip via NightmareSteam