Over the weekend, Tekken fans received news on the supposed cancellation of the long-time large-scale project, Tekken X Street Fighter, first teased over a decade ago and has since been kept under wraps. With nothing but the word of series director Katsuhiro Harada to go by, many fans understandably take information involving the project from the director himself as insight for the Tekken series's future.
Unfortunately, discourse between a Japanese developer and a majorly English-speaking audience leads to language barriers, especially when it comes to relaying important information about a project's development. Over the weekend, a recent video of Katsuhiro Harada's series, Harada's Bar, surfaced with English subtitles stating that Tekken X Street Fighter was canceled. According to the Tekken director himself, the English translation wasn't exactly accurate to Harada's original thoughts, who quickly went on Twitter to clarify the misunderstanding.
The general confusion and sudden announcement of the supposed cancellation led Harada to post a twitlonger, explaining that Tekken X Street Fighter wasn't "canceled," but rather "up to 30% of the development was in progress, but is [now pending]." Following the announcement of Tekken X Street Fighter's cancellation going viral, Harada tweeted his frustrations with the English subtitles, citing that it wasn't the first time Harada's comments weren't accurately translated to English, leading to fans taking his initial words out of context.
Harada states that while the project hadn't been killed off, it has been put on an indefinite hiatus due to contractual agreements between Bandai Namco and Capcom's intellectual properties and the individual projects both companies are currently working on. Capcom, in particular, has had its hands full with the ongoing development of Resident Evil Village and the Monster Hunter franchise post-release, with long-term DLC plans into the year 2021.
While it's unknown what project Katsuhiro Harada is working on within Bandai Namco, he has stated in the past that this large-scale project will be the "most costly project" in company history. Following his promotion to a general manager of Bandai Namco, Harada himself has been met with several responsibilities outside of Tekken, leading to both companies experiencing a time crunch that would make Tekken X Street Fighter an unrealistic goal currently.
In positive news for Tekken fans, the inclusion of Akuma may have been what he always was following his inclusion in Tekken 7, a preview on how Street Fighter characters would perform using the Tekken engine. In the original Harada's Bar video, Harada has stated that there are assets he wishes he could show, but, due to the mentioned contractual agreements, it will be kept under wraps until development picks back up again for Tekken X Street Fighter.
Source: Twitlonger