Roughly 20 years after being thrown from a cliff in a test by his father, Kazuya Mishima will once again enter an Iron Fist Tournament to exact revenge.
Game publisher Bandai Namco announced that it was preparing to release the latest version of the Tekken series of fighting games. Moving away from its non-canonical tag-team series and back to its roots, Tekken 7 will use Unreal Engine 4 to deliver its most visceral fighting experience to date.
News of Tekken 7's development was announced at the Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas, in the midst of the heated tournament in which gamers were vying to progress through the rounds of the fighting game competition. While game play footage wasn't revealed, Bandai Namco released a 1:26 minute trailer in which Kazuya announces his intent to return to the Iron Fist Tournament and defeat his father.
Katsuhiro Harada, executive producer of the Tekken series and game director at Bandai Namco, said the newly released Unreal Engine 4 will fast-track developement of the game and deliver the scalability required to cover all existing platforms. The Unreal 4 Engine has been optimized for deployment on PC, new-gen console and mobile devices.
"The power and flexibility means that we can focus our efforts on making Tekken 7 the best possible game without worrying about spending time creating a standalone graphic engine," said Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken series executive producer and game director at Bandai Namco.
"With Unreal Engine 4, we could rapidly achieve visual quality expected on next-gen platform and go beyond it. Not only is Unreal Engine 4 powerful and easy to use, but it allows us to immediately bring Tekken 7 to any platform we desire."
Though only a teaser trailer was revealed on July 13 in Las Vegas, Bandai Namco said it planned to release more details at Comic Con in San Diego on July 25. Epic Games, developer of the Unreal Engine, will collaborate with Bandai Namco on Tekken 7's development through its Japanese division, Epic Games Japan.
Taka Kawasaki, head of Epic Games Japan, described his company's collaboration with Bandai Namco on the game as a perfect marriage, a relationship between "the most powerful engine in gaming" and "one of the most enduring brands in fighting games."
"The Tekken franchise is beloved and we couldn't be more excited to be working with the talented team at Bandai Namco," said Kawasaki. "We have no doubt that these forces coming together will yield fantastic results."
