Fighting games keep adding guests to the roster, and devs are being short-sighted about their success. When I say guest characters, we’re talking about characters that come from a completely different franchise or genre that have been added to a fighting game’s roster, something that’s been happening for years now.
Characters like Clive Rosfield, 2B, and Leatherface are characters that instantly come to mind, all of which were welcomed with varying levels of success. Well, I’m here to tell them that they’re looking at DLC from a numbers standpoint and not a fighting game community standpoint.
Roster Dusting
Every fighting game that comes out will always have a few characters cut for the sake of a smaller roster. Games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter have entire decades’ worth of fighting game legacy, and not all of those characters can fit into a launch roster. Street Fighter 5 specifically had to fit returning and new characters into a measly roster size of 16, and you already know fans were crying out for more returning characters as DLC. Street Fighter 5 did put returning legacy characters as DLC eventually, but I’m still holding out for my main man Dudley to make a dramatic entrance.
There is also the question of why devs choose to omit certain fighters from their roster upon release. That answer ultimately comes down to character popularity, but there are also two ways to interpret why popularity matters. The first way is that a character is so unpopular that their comeback is almost negligible. Characters like Gigas and Katarina from Tekken 7 weren’t fan favorites at all, which is probably why they were omitted moving into Tekken 8, and honestly, we may never see them again. Then there’s the second way to interpret all this, which is that a character is so popular that they would guarantee a high volume of sales, just like how Tekken handled Eddy Gordo for Tekken 8. A cheap tactic if you ask me.
For the Sales
One of the main motivations for fighting game developers to release guest tie-in characters as DLC is the ability to reach a wider market. Taking Clive or Noctis from Final Fantasy and dropping them as DLC for Tekken will not only have Tekken fans curious but will also draw in some Final Fantasy fans who don’t play Tekken. The same goes for Yoda in Soul Calibur, Terry Bogard in Street Fighter 6, and Ghostface in Mortal Kombat 1. The fighting game devs keep releasing guest DLC characters because, truthfully, the numbers do not lie! And that is still a good thing.
I just want to emphasize again that I don’t hate DLC characters, I just think there are better ways to keep a game profitable. I can empathize with the dev team’s desire to reach a wider audience and sell more of their DLC characters, even to the casual audience. With the advent of live service fighting games, it can be hard to keep a game afloat with updates, new content, and even community support unless you have enough cash to back it, which is why I am begging Capcom to please release more costumes for Street Fighter 6. I promise it’ll be for the betterment of the game.
Legacy Retains
While guest DLC characters do sell well and rake in the big bucks, I believe there’s a better way to go about this. Because sure, you may get an influx of new players who are from different fandoms flocking to your game just to see how their character plays, but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll stay for long. It’s here where the highs and lows of a fighting game’s lifespan happen, and I believe the players that stick around after the highs are the players that matter the most. Not these tourists that play the game for a few hours and get on social media to start complaining and begging for buffs.
I believe that giving series loyalists their favorite legacy characters is going to lead to more long-term profit for these game devs. Take me for example, I quit Tekken 8 because I hate the new combat systems, but I’m confident that in a heartbeat, if they brought back my Spanish Hothead Miguel Caballero Rojo, then I’d be stuck on Tekken 8 until the day it goes defunct. With that type of loyalty to legacy characters, you’d have more viewership during esports events, more merch to sell, more stages to sell, and more natural marketing because you’re catering to people who are already fans and want to stay fans.
I am begging game devs to pour more time and effort into putting legacy characters into their game, because I guarantee that returning characters like Armor King from Tekken or Alex from Street Fighter get a bigger pop-off than Clive in Tekken 8.
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