Back in 2010 at the San Diego Comic Con, it was announced that Namco Bandai and Capcom would release Street Fighter x Tekken and Tekken x Street Fighter. Street Fighter x Tekken released in 2012 to mixed reviews, and since then the fate of Tekken x Street Fighter has been uncertain. Until now, in an interview with Gamespot, Tekken Game Director Katsuhiro Harada confirmed that Namco Bandai isn’t working on Tekken x Street Fighter. Progress has been made on the game and there is a very small chance it could possibly be released, but it’s basically cancelled. After six years of waiting, I guess the dozens of fans who were waiting for this game have had their dreams crushed. I guess they’ll have to settle for one Tekken and Street Fighter crossover game.
In the interview, Harada explains that the reason the fighting game hasn’t been released is that he’s worried it would split the audience of both franchises. “When we develop fighting games, we try to keep the core community in mind as well as the wider audience that wants to play these games.” He went on to add “But currently the situation is with fighting games, you have Street Fighter V that just released–a lot of people are playing that feverently–and there’s a large crowd out there waiting for Tekken 7.” He said the game is “on hold for the moment” but it has been six years and we haven’t even seen another trailer besides the first announcement back in 2010.
Back in 2013, Harada commented that the game was still in development, although nothing was shown of the game’s progress. The interview was little while after Street Fighter x Tekken’s release, and one of the reasons for the Tekken x Street Fighter’s delay was that there were still updates for SFxT. However, Harada also stated that “there seems to be a whole new community growing around that title that wasn’t playing either of those titles up to that point.” It seems like both audiences enjoy the crossover game, but some of the controversy surrounding Street Fighter x Tekken might have also been a reason. The game wasn’t as well received by fans as Capcom hoped, and the game was also part of one of the biggest “On-disc DLC” scandals ever.
In a later interview in July 2015, Harada said that good progress was made on the game, including a roster, polygon models, and characters moves being finished. However, Namco Bandai was also busy on Tekken 7, Pokken Tournament, Project Treasure, and a PS4 Virtual Reality title, so the cross over was put aside. Will Tekken x Street Fighter be the Duke Nukem Forever of fighting games? Probably.
It’s a shame that Tekken x Street Fighter hasn’t been released yet, but a lot has changed in gaming the past six years. Since Street Fighter x Tekken already came out, maybe the enthusiasm for another cross-over died out and Namco Bandai focused on other projects. However, fans can get an idea of how Tekken x Street Fighter might have worked if they play as Akuma is Tekken 7.