Unfortunately, a Tekken ‘classics collection’ may not be on the horizon

As advanced as video gaming is getting these days, there is something to be said about a trip down Nostalgia Avenue. Remasters from studios like Nightdive, as well as the return of classic games in collectible sets and downloads, keep us retro fans happy. However, if you’re big into Tekken and would love to play the old games on modern systems, that might not be happening.

In a recent interview with The Gamer, producer and director Katsuhiro Harada – who’s been with the series pretty much since day one – kind of suggests we won’t get a Tekken “classics collection” any time soon.

Along with designer Michael Murray, the two discussed the ways in which fighting games age over the years. This is pretty prominent in 3D titles as opposed to 2D games like Street Fighter. Murray – translating for Harada in the interview – says how fans of 3D fighting games tend to “play the latest installment” and that 2D titles use sprite characters instead of polygons, which means “they don’t seem to age graphically that much.”

But I want my low-poly Yoshimitsu

It should be said that this does not mean we won’t ever see the older Tekken games come back as some sort of wistful collection. What Harada and Murray seem to be saying is that a lot of fans of the series might not be interested in looking back across the years. True, the first game – released all the way back in 1994 – is rather unpretty when compared to the sleek, crisp, high-poly visuals of the latter entries, but there will almost certainly be a demand for the classics.

Murray goes on to say the following:

If it’s a drastically different gameplay change, like a Tag 2 compared to 7 or 8, maybe that’s something I would probably pick up and play for a little bit. Or maybe the Tekken Force mode or Devil Within or something like that.

However, he does caveat that by adding:

I wouldn’t even see myself picking up Tekken 3 and playing against friends for an extended period of time. So yeah, there is a difference we feel between the 3D fighters and 2D fighters in that respect.

Again, this doesn’t mean we won’t ever get a Tekken classics collection sometime in the future. It just seems like, at the moment, the studio is probably not considering one. Lord knows, I’d love to be able to play the earlier games, especially the third one, which is still one of my favorite fighting games of all time. You didn’t really need to know that. I just felt like sharing.