We could feign surprise, but honestly, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves getting a crossover with Tekken 8 is anything but a shock. SNK showed its hand a few days ago with a teaser that left little doubt about the imminent arrival of Reina Mishima. It's now official, though we'll have to be patient before we see the woman billed as Heihachi Mishima's illegitimate daughter in action.
The Japanese studio has made do with a short video in which the lady in question, already pencilled in for December, makes it abundantly clear she fancies a scrap with Nightmare Geese. Worth pointing out that Reina Mishima is part of Season Pass 3, available since 23 July and priced at £17.99 on PC, Xbox Series, PS4 and PS5 (unless you picked up the Revenge Edition for around fifty quid).
Every Season 3 character is now known
Season Pass 3 has beefed up the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves roster with Rick Strowd from Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers (23 July), Duck King from Fatal Fury (27 August), Kim Kaphwan from Fatal Fury 2 (26 September), and Laocorn from the Fatal Fury film (November).
Oh yes, we nearly forgot Manjiro 'Mikey' Sano and Ken 'Draken' Ryuguji, the two leads from the Tokyo Revengers anime, confirmed not long ago. They'll be available from 22 October, the same date the game launches on Nintendo Switch 2.
This collaboration between Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves and Tekken 8 brings to mind another crossover that should have seen the light of day: Tekken X Street Fighter. Development at Bandai Namco Games kicked off at the same time as Street Fighter X Tekken (which was handled by Capcom's teams and released in 2012).
In May 2019, Katsuhiro Harada, the former producer of the Tekken series, said: "I still want to release the game. That said, even though I want the project to move forward, a lot has changed since 2012. First I need to get the green light and talk it over with Capcom — they may well say no. [...]"
Tekken X Street Fighter, the one that got away
Before adding: "By the time we were ready to go all in on developing Tekken X Street Fighter, Capcom released Street Fighter 5. Tekken 7 came out right after. They're among the best fighting games ever made, and they were doing very well. So I asked myself whether it was worth making a game that would compete directly with them. The community risked being split. That was something the marketing department looked at very seriously. So I decided to put the project on standby for a year or two."
Asked about it again two years later, Harada-san explained: "I'd have loved to show you the characters, and everything else too. We had some really good models. I really wanted to reveal Chun-Li and all the characters to you. The female characters looked really good, and so did the concept art… Such a waste, so many artists contributed to it… I hope I can show it all one day, but Street Fighter is a Capcom licence, so it isn't entirely up to us."
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Katsuhiro Harada has left Bandai Namco Games to head up VS Studio, an in-house SNK outfit. Given that the Osaka firm has Saudi Arabia's bottomless pockets behind it, you'd expect him to have a free hand in hitting his targets. We don't know what he and his teams are currently working on, but he recently indicated it isn't a game completely removed from what his fans expect of him. Duly noted.
