Them’s Fighting Words: Team Ninja Says Fighting Games Haven’t Changed Much

29 Nov, 2011

Thanks to Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter IV, and other big fighting titles coming out next year like Street Fighter X Tekken and Soul Calibur V, there’s been a revival of the ailing genre. Well, some might not say it’s an ailing genre, but Team Ninja’s Yosuke Hayashi begs to differ.

In an interview with Siliconera, the head of the Dead or Alive studio said that while it all looks prettier with each iteration, the real devil with the genre lies in the fine technical print.

“…we saw Street Fighter IV and the fighting genre come back because in a large part of Capcom and what they were doing,” said Hayashi. “For all of the fighting games that came out we looked at them, but there was something wrong.

“[Street Fighter IV and Dead or Alive 4] looked great with updated graphics and had online gameplay, but the gameplay itself hasn’t changed. It’s still the gameplay we’ve had for years.”

The argument could be made that you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. Sure, it’s not something radically new and different each time, but the fighting formula can arguably remain the same — gamers like to wail on each other in progressively better looking games, with new characters, new settings, and new move sets. That works, right? Hayashi said that with Dead or Alive 5, Team Ninja wants to do more than the simple things.

“We started to think how can we change the genre,” he said. “What could we add new and put that into the fighting game? And that’s how that idea came out.”

During the Tokyo Game Show this year, Team Ninja revealed Dead or Alive 5, calling it “fighting entertainment.” What that exactly means, we’re not really sure, but Team Ninja hopes it’s going to be a genre-defining moment.

Comparing notes to Arc System Works’ games and the Soul Calibur series, Hayashi said that Team Ninja and Dead or Alive are entirely different. “We’re not looking to be a technical hardcore fighter,” said Hayashi. “We want a game that a lot of people can have fun with, but people who want that depth can find it. When people watch the second part of the demo, that will give players a sense of what we’re thinking of when we mean ‘fighting entertainment.”

Via CVG.