- Primary Subject: Fighting Game Narrative Trends [General Genre Analysis - 2026]
- Key Update: This editorial critiques the industry trend of resurrecting iconic bosses like Heihachi Mishima and M. Bison, arguing it cheapens story impact and stunts the growth of new characters.
- Status: Opinion / Industry Analysis
- Last Verified: January 20, 2026
- Quick Answer: Constant boss revivals ruin narrative stakes; the author argues developers should instead use successors (like Reina) or non-canon appearances to satisfy fans without breaking lore.
M. Bison, Heihachi Mishima, and now Geese Howard. The one thing that ties these characters together, other than weird father-mentor relationships, is that they’re all icons of their respective games. Some people would even argue that they’re fighting game icons! Another thing that ties these icons together is that they have all died…more than once. There’s this ongoing joke in the fighting game community where no one really dies, and after seeing it happen in this generation’s fighting game entries, I think it’s safe to say the joke’s gone on far too long. And I promise I’m not being just bitter for the sake of clicks.
Cheap Story
Fighting game stories are an integral part of what makes fighting games amazing, and reviving final bosses in-story is the most disrespectful thing to do to your story. Every fighting game story is punctuated by a final boss that’ll leave you white-fisting your controller with the same frustration as a souls-like, but that’s exactly why they’re satisfying to begin with. Reaching the victory screen on a difficult fighting game final boss and finally killing them off is the most cathartic feeling in the world, but all that is lost when somehow they just return in the next game as if nothing happened.
Fighting games are games built upon iconic characters, which means writing a character off completely would mean killing off someone’s main. It’s a daunting choice, but then again, having a story that’s too afraid of killing off its characters makes any story cheap. It was funny the first few times, having Tekken’s Mishima family take turns dropping each other off into volcanoes to somehow miraculously survive, but at some point, their revival feels like a betrayal. I want to feel the fear that comes with knowing my character may not be coming back in the next mainline game, but these constant character revivals now just come off as tropes meant for shock value.
Stopped Progression
Fighting game characters always die for a reason, and while not all of them may be good deaths (RIP Claudio from Tekken 8), those deaths should not be cheap. Death should feel drastic and final - something that leaves ripples of effects throughout the game’s story moving forward. One of the better examples of this would be Kronika from Mortal Kombat 11, a boss character whose death helped reshape the entire Mortal Kombat world! But admittedly, this might be less about the character’s effects and more on NetherRealm’s insistence to keep resetting their universe, but the point remains the same: her death propelled the story forward. And having villains come back to death just means you’re going around in circles.
To look at the negative effects of this, we take another example from Mortal Kombat’s book in Shao Kahn. Admittedly, this guy is a beast. I love him so much whenever he’s on screen, and his giant hammer will always be satisfying to use. But, as much as I love the character, I have to admit that every time he’s been the main antagonist of a Mortal Kombat game, it just feels like the story’s going through a familiar loop that I’m already tired of. If we keep reviving these villains to enact the same type of scheming they’ve been doing, then does their death really matter?
When It’s Done Right
Let’s face it, killing any character off is sure to be a huge headache for the dev team. It’s always an idea that seems good at the time, but then you move on to the next iteration, and you feel that something’s missing. It happened with Heihachi, it happened with Shao Kahn, and it’s the entire reason why Marvel vs Capcom Infinite ended the way it did. So it makes sense that developers would eventually decide to bring back these recently deceased characters, so then it only comes down to how they do it.
One of the best ways to do this is to introduce a character that’s meant to succeed the killed-off boss character. Characters like Reina and Kotal Kahn come to mind when examining this trope, because both characters are similar enough in playstyle to please fans, but different enough to still move the story forward. I can still remember the hype around seeing Reina’s trailer for the first time, screaming at the top of my lungs because she did a demon’s breath. Another way to bring these iconic characters back is to reintroduce them as something that isn’t canon to the story! They could either be an apparition, a guest character, or just a bit of fan service that won’t hinder the story.
Fighting game stories are more than just fluff on the product; it’s something I care deeply about, and it’s exactly why I keep coming back to these fighting games in the first place. So the next time I see a fighting game character “die”, I’ll wait a few years before shedding my tears.
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