Katsuhiro Harada, the sunglasses-adorned fighting game veteran who's directed almost every Tekken, has some choice words for disgruntled fans that assume he hates their favorite mains, also known as Harada's children.
Tekken 8 continued gaming's longest running storyline earlier this year, but the fighting genre dictates that every series outside of Super Smash Bros needs to shed fat to make way for new character, leaving some fan favorites off Tekken 8's roster, as things currently stand.
After one fan complained about Anna's absence in the sequel and an assumed bias against the assassin, Harada responded that there's "no way" he hates any character. "If I seem to like or dislike them, that is just your misunderstanding, because they are all like my children," he tweeted. "You are just seeing something distorted by your assumptions. I'm also the one who is most disturbed by the popularity pecking order that appears for characters, however it is inevitable (more to the point, popularity and usage are two separate factors)."
Harada continues to explain that the studio can't feasibly make every Tekken character playable because "there will be no room to introduce new ones," adding that "your love for the characters is distorting the way you look at things."
Some of those disgruntled fans doubled down on their viewpoints, arguing that "it makes business sense" to forgo introducing new characters in favor of expanding on the old ones, which prompted Harada to absolutely cook with a scorching response: "Do you need me to explain that to you from every perspective now? Then from here on out, I'm going to charge you tuition for lectures on 'what video games are,' 'what game development is,' 'what the game market is,' 'what the game business is,' and so on. Also, before we talk about your business perspective, please tell me your business track record." Ouch.
