Today, Bandai Namco announced that Tekken 7 would be released on June 2 – a few months later than the previously planned early 2017 launch window. Speaking with IGN at a recent media event, Tekken Director Katsuhiro Harada explained that the delay was a result of the team not wanting to cut any content:
We were trying to do everything we could to make that [early 2017] date happen… maybe to scale down on the content in order to make the master release, but in the end we came to the decision that [after] seeing releases from other companies, as well as some of the past of our own, where maybe things weren’t working 100% at launch, or maybe it was missing some content, that’s the kind of thing we wanted to avoid with Tekken 7, so we made a very difficult decision of moving it to June to include all of the original content that we’d originally planned.
One of the games Harada is likely referring to is Street Fighter V, which Capcom themselves admitted had a lack of content at launch.
Over on Twitter, Harada apologized to a couple of fans about the delay, and revealed that they’ve made some significant improvements to Tekken 7 since 2016. “Last year.. PS4 & X1 loading time exceeding 1 minute, but Now it is getting shorter to 15 to 18 seconds,” he wrote. “Time for more quality up. Thanks.”
On the PlayStation Blog, Bandai Namco Community Manager Dalton Link gave some other reasons why Tekken 7 was moved to June:
The console version of Tekken 7 contains features, tuning, characters, and modes that are not found in the arcade version. This version benefits from everything we learned from the arcade launch of the game. We are able to take the comments, data, and observations made from the arcade launch to balance the game and further improve the gameplay.
The console version also contains a full story mode not found in the arcade version, along with some fan favorite characters. Lastly, tournament play is very important to both the Tekken development team and to our hardcore fans, we want to make sure our online tournament features perform to the highest possible standard. All of these improvements take time and we appreciate your patience.
In terms of post-launch content, the Tekken 7 Season Pass will include DLC packs that add new characters, stages, costume packs, a game mode, and more.
