Can the Fighting Game genre become mainstream again?
During the childhood of millennials, Kids are debating on which is better, Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.
Fighting game Genre use to be the coolest games to buy in consoles and play on Arcades.
There is an oversaturation of the Fighting game market in the early 2000s. My Childhood is completed by Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Killer Instinct, and many more.
We still have fighting games during this era. There are no Fighting game titles announced for Ps5 and X-series yet, but the current-gen does have fighting games.
These days Fighting Games have seen more as hardcore esports that casuals cant play. People enjoy first-person shooters, Battle Royales, RPGs, and casual mobile games more.
I am still waiting for the next-gen fighting game announcement, but for now, we might be getting ports of Ps4 games instead.
Why did fighting games become less popular these days?
Many casual players find them too difficult to learn.
They had a hard time executing combos and learning commands. Capcom attempted to have a beginner mode to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with the beginner mod where a single button can do combos, but they still have a hard time keeping up with pros.
There are fighting games that are easy to learn and very button-masher friendly, like Dead or Alive and Tekken.
Fighting games these days with the exemption of Mortal Kombat have lacked content in the single-player content.
The only fighting game that offered the most single-player content for casuals on the current-gen is Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat 9, X, and 11 have rich single-player content like Arcade mode, Cinematic Story mode, tower, and many more.
No wonder Mortal Kombat 11 won the fighting game of the Year on the game Awards. Netherrealm studios made a balance between casual players and competitive players. They also did a great job with injustice.
Most fighting game developers focused too much on the e-sports and multiplayer aspect that the casuals got neglected. Speaking of Multiplayer, Many Fighting game players complain a lot about the Netcode and glitches they experience.
Speaking of competitions, I am a bit sad that a Fornite tournament has more views than Evo.
I do hope the Fighting game genre will be mainstream again. The developers need to realize that casual players are important too. I understand the competitive scene is important but the casuals should not be neglected.
Kaworu
September 1, 2022 @ 4:49 am
One thing is accessibility, It is too hard for beginners to learn it compare to a first person shooter.
Dwight in a Box
September 1, 2022 @ 4:59 am
They need to make new characters from countries with high social media presence that is not US and Japan since those countries had enough representatives. Also roll back netcode, So many fighting games die online due to the lack of Rollback netcode. You need to have a good netcode to have many players online.