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Fighting games are quite strange beasts these days. The genre will always have its hardcore and professional fans - there's no doubt about that - but very few fighters manage to appeal directly to a more casual audience. The bottom line is that times have changed; we remember the days when Tekken, for example, was a massive deal on the original PlayStation, to the point where just about everyone we knew was willing to pick up a controller and give it a go. Now, it almost feels like fighting games exist within their own bubble. They don't get a huge amount of mainstream coverage, and even when they do, the fresh news may not be all that enticing to those who don't frequently dabble in the genre.

Titles like Street Fighter V - as great a game as it is - certainly don't help. A fantastic time at its core, Capcom's latest is a brilliant one-on-one brawler, but its sales have recently fallen off a cliff. Why? Well, it's partly because it just doesn't appeal to that wider audience. More casual players don't want to sit and grind through online battles in order to unlock newly added characters - many of them just want some good old fashioned single player content.

With that in mind, we think it's somewhat safe to say that a lot is riding on Tekken 7. The game's due out in early 2017 on PlayStation 4 after spending years in Japanese arcades, and given the overall popularity of the series, there's some pressure on the upcoming release to resonate - and not just with the hardcore crowd.

Fortunately, it sounds like Bandai Namco knows what it's doing. In an interview with GameSpot, producer Katsuhiro Harada talks about what modes players can expect from Tekken 7 when it launches on consoles. "Obviously we don't want to change the formula people expect," says Michael Murray, who's a designer on the game and Harada's translator. "That said, with all the Tekken games, we always add extra content [to the console release]," he continues. "One of the big features is the story mode, in addition to the arcade mode. Other modes, for example, consist of some type of gallery that allows you to catch up on story elements of the past instalments."

So, we can at least expect a full cinematic story mode, a traditional arcade mode, and some other new features when the sequel hits PS4. On top of that, we imagine that the likes of a standard versus mode and Tekken's trademark ghost mode will also make a return. In other words, this probably won't result in another Street Fighter V situation.

How important is a fighter's single player content to you? Do you enjoy playing against computer controlled opponents, or would you rather just get stuck into the online portion of the release? Throw out some complex combos in the comments section below.

[source gamespot.com]