Katsuhiro Harada, the director of the Tekken project, went to a podcast where, among other topics, he shared his opinion on younger generations of gamers.

One of the interesting points is that younger players tend to play team-based games because such titles allow them to avoid taking responsibility for the loss.

But most young people nowadays are the opposite. They’re rarely eager to engage in one-on-one showdowns. Plus, because fighting games pit you by yourself against a single opponent, you have to accept all the responsibility if you lose. You can’t blame anyone else. 

In team-based shooters, when players win, they can say that they won because of their own contributions, but when they lose, it’s because they got matched with a lousy team.
Katsuhiro Harada

Harada thinks that such a change in attitude might lead to the evolution of the fighting games genre, as more team-based elements might be integrated into the game. He mentioned the concept of a 3-v-3 team match. Such an idea needs to be explored, but it is not necessarily bad. 

With Tekken 8 being a success, who knows where the genre of fighting games will evolve?

Main image: Polygon

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