The Tekken series of fighting games is arguably one of the most iconic in the genre’s history. Although the original Tekken set the bar for the future of 3D fighting games to come, an old interview with one of the game’s developers revealed that the beloved title underwent severe development chaos leading up to its arcade release in 1994.
It takes a lot for a game to earn the universal recognition that Tekken has since its inception in the mid-'90s. Bandai-Namco’s 3D fighter is a staple in the world of fighting games, and its early success has continued even into the modern age of fighting games with the successful release of Tekken 7 in 2015. Tekken arguably revolutionized fighting game mechanics with the introduction of individual-limb control, where players could control each limb of their character to either attack their opponent or defend themselves from oncoming hits. Combined with 3D graphics (likely influenced by Sega’s Virtua Fighter), Tekken essentially changed the way developers could approach fighting games and encouraged more advanced gameplay techniques from players. But despite this ongoing influence on fighting games, the development wasn't entirely smooth.
Despite the success Tekken would go on to receive, it took a lot of hard work to get there. Twitter secrets about Tekken's disastrous development. In the interview, Kounoe detailed the start of an “inter-developer battle,” a term he used to describe the act of developers giving into their egos and pushing their ideas into the game while secretly overwriting the work of those whose ideas they disagreed with. The game was constantly being changed and reverted without discussion beforehand, causing the earliest playtests to be incredibly inconsistent and, at times, completely unplayable. In the full interview, Kounoe also discussed industry issues the developers faced, including crunch. Kounoe had spent nights at the office before Tekken, but claims that the 3D fighter was “the first time inefficiency and competitiveness had been the cause.”
Many of Bandai-Namco’s newcomers and most talented developers had also left the company because of Tekken, leaving the studio unsure of its future. Although such a concept seems alien today, it still occurs in some of today’s biggest studios like CD Projekt Red. The developer was rumored to have enforced crunch hours on employees in preparation for Cyberpunk 2077’s release.
Although Tekken would succeed in the long run, the hardships that the development team endured to get to that point cannot be understated. Bandai-Namco has since found much better methods for handling bigger projects like Tekken to ensure their future titles do not suffer from development chaos, or worse, get canceled after years of work. The supposed newest entry in the series, Tekken 8, was included in the infamous NVIDIA leak last year, meaning it may not be long before fans can get a look at the future of the world’s biggest 3D fighting game.
Sources: fffightinfacts/Twitter
