2016 was a historically bad year for 3D fighters

O

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Let's start by turning the clock back 20 years.

1996:
Dead or Alive
Fighters Megamix
Last Bronx
Tobal no 1
Virtua Fighter 3
Soul Edge (Dec. 1995)

All exceptional titles, but please note: only one of those is a sequel. Holy shit, right? Worth noting: Tekken 2 came out the year before and Tekken 3 came out the year after. Conclusion: 20 years ago, people who liked 3D fighters saw a bright future.

Fast forward 10 years.

2006:
Soul Calibur III Arcade Edition
Tekken 5DR
Virtua Fighter 5

Well... that's half as many. All sequels, and more worrying, 2/3 were updates to already existing games. Looks like a downward trend. Concession: 2005 saw DoA4, SCIII, Tekken 5 and 2007 saw Tekken 6.

Time warp +10 years.

2016:
Tekken 7 FR

An update to a sequel.

Otherwise, nothing? DoA5 got a new character update and VF5FS was more-or-less brought to current gen by way of XBO BC and Yakuza 6 on PS4. For fans of the genre, all we have to look forward to at the moment is Tekken 7, a game announced 2.5 years ago.

And that sucks.
 
oneida said:
Let's start by turning the clock back 20 years.

1996:
Dead or Alive
Fighters Megamix
Last Bronx
Tobal no 1
Virtua Fighter 3
Soul Edge (Dec. 1995)

All notable titles, but please note: only one of those is a sequel. Holy shit, right? Worth noting: Tekken 2 came out the year before and Tekken 3 came out the year after. Conclusion: 20 years ago, people who liked 3D fighters saw a bright future.

Fast forward 10 years.

2006:
Soul Calibur III Arcade Edition
Tekken 5DR
Virtua Fighter 5

Well... that's half as many. All sequels, and more worrying, 2/3 were updates to already existing games. Looks like a downward trend. Concession: 2005 saw DoA4, SCIII, Tekken 5 and 2007 saw Tekken 6.

Time warp +10 years.

2016:
Tekken 7 FR

An update to a sequel.

Otherwise, nothing? DoA5 got a new character update and VF5FS was more-or-less brought to current gen by way of XBO BC and Yakuza 6 on PS4. For fans of the genre, all we have to look forward to at the moment is Tekken 7, a game announced 2.5 years ago.

And that sucks.
Click to expand...

AND MARVEL, BABY!

Plus Injustice 2.

Nidhogg 2 as well.

Plus Blazblue came out this year and ppl love it.
 
Glix said:
AND MARVEL, BABY!

Plus Injustice 2.

Nidhogg 2 as well.

Plus Blazblue came out this year and ppl love it.
Click to expand...

When OP says "3D Fighters", they mean stuff like Tekken and Soul Calibur, games where you can move on the X, Y, and Z axis.

Also, OP, who knows. If all the rumors are true, you might get your wish with the Marvel vs Capcom reboot possibly being an arena fighter.
 
Nah man Blazblue is amazing and Marvel is abo... Nah i'm kidding Oneida

But yeah , i really enjoy 3D fighters but it seems like the genre is "dead" atm (except Tekken 7).
 
3d fighters in general seem to be much less popular these days, what with all the big hitters going to 2.5d.

Virtua Fighter 6 when? :(
 
oneida said:
Let's start by turning the clock back 20 years.

1996:
Dead or Alive
Fighters Megamix
Last Bronx
Tobal no 1
Virtua Fighter 3
Soul Edge (Dec. 1995)

All exceptional titles.
Click to expand...
I can't agree with you on this.Outside of VF3, I didn't think any of those other titles were that great.
 
250px-PokkenTournamentBoxart.png


On Wii U at least.
 
Soltype said:
I can't agree with you on this.Outside of VF3, I didn't think any of those other titles were that great.
Click to expand...
That was a ninja edit because initially I said they were "all notable titles" so I said "note" like eight times in that sentence
 
Pokken Tournament came home this year, does that not count?

The12thGripper said:
Pokken...kinda counts, right?
Click to expand...

...seconds.

Agreed with the OP, 3D fighters are in a lull, but I'm not that upset myself, there haven't been a lot of great ones in history outside of Namco Bandai and SEGA's offerings (and even fewer great ones in recent history) so I'm rarely surprised that there's not a lot cooking in the subgenre.

If something like a Bushido Blade could come along and show something new with the genre, that'd be helpful. Few developers are looking at Tekken or VF these days and thinking, "We should try to do that," no pro studios for sure and the last indie attempt was maybe Girl Fight or something like that.
 
See my avatar. 3D fighters are my favorite genre by far. Their absence has been really painful for me and is responsible for my declining interest in gaming in general.

Shit hurts, brehs.
 
Master Thespian said:
See my avatar. 3D fighters are my favorite genre by far. Their absence has been really painful for me and is responsible for my declining interest in gaming in general.

Shit hurts, brehs.
Click to expand...
It's a long winter but the soul still burns comrade.
 
But it was good for 2D Fighters:
Guilty Gear, KI Season 3, Blazblue, SFV and KOF XIV.

I really miss VF and Soul Calibur, but I'm ok with more 2D games.
 
It's so strange, for a while it felt like a new 3D fighter was coming out every week. Now it's either 2D or Arena style

Edit: I consider Pokken an Arena fighter
 
I strongly prefer 2D fighters over 3D, but I empathize with fans of the latter.

2017 seems like it will quickly pick up the slack with the Tekken 7 console release.
 
I'm not big on 3D fighters honestly, but this news saddens me all the same. I am looking forward to Tekken at least :/
 
It's so bad, this diehard virtua fighter fan is thinking about picking up tekken.

I tried TTT2 and did not care for it....
 
It costs money to make 3D perspective fighters OP. As hardware becomes better expectations increase, which is not necessarily the case with 2D grid fighters

Only Namco bandai can realistically have the budget to push these kinds of games anymore, and even then you have people deriding the visuals in certain cases.
 
family_guy said:
Naruto? DBZ? I mean if you consider Smash Bros a fighter then I'd include those.
Click to expand...
Well, DBZ at least runs at 60fps.

Inuhanyou said:
It costs money to make 3D perspective fighters OP. As hardware becomes better expectations increase, which is not necessarily the case with 2D grid fighters

Only Namco bandai can realistically have the budget to push these kinds of games anymore, and even then you have people deriding the visuals in certain cases.
Click to expand...
Nearly everything uses 3D models these days. Even Guilty Gear. It's just a game design decision.
 
I don't think anime beat em ups are the kind of in depth mechanic fighters OP is talking about.

And smash is only 1 game, also made by namco bandai and funded by nintendo

SapientWolf said:
Well, DBZ at least runs at 60fps.


Nearly everything uses 3D models these days. Even Guilty Gear. It's just a game design decision.
Click to expand...

Using 3D models is not the same as making a 3D fighter. You would not call SF4 a 3D fighter because it had 3D environments.

And i guess i went too far. Not just Namco Bandai. Team Ninja can do it when they feel like not raking in the cash of their DLC schemes. But they have not made a new fighting game with new assets since 2012, so who knows what their perspective is now
 
Of course the root cause is a decline in popularity. In the 90's the spectacle of a 3D fighter was enough to reel in a general audience and now it isn't.

But for those who find the games qualitatively better than their 2D cousins, that sucks man
 
There's Pokken, which is good but its on a dead system and is seemingly missing roster updates that the unlocalized arcade version is getting. Hopefully an enhanced Switch port in 2017 can revitalize it. Tekken 7 is around the corner for console release so I'm hoping for a resurgence.
 
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