Leaked Sony Slides Tease Renewed Focus On Fighting Games For Live Service Initiatives

Sony could soon shift its focus towards the fighting games genre, as hinted by recently leaked slides.

[purple101]

Just give me soul caliber. Give it the single player campaign of the Dreamcast version.

Hell, just remake the Dreamcast version back to basics. None of these disappearing / teleporting moves that take away from the fluidity of the dance/fight

[Terry_B]

*SoulCalibur

[blackblades]

Its sony not namco, anyways maybe an all-stars.

[purple101]

Yeh soulcalibur is Namco, -but I still want it! soso,. sooo much

I remember playing all versions; the guest characters were so much fun

ie, at my house, PS2, Heihachi Mishima, from tekken
at my friends, on Gamecube, Link, from Zelda,
and xbox had spawn,

Thing was, to win you needed to learn all character's moves, so you knew, what was coming next in their combo, but you couldn't, obviously, lean the guest characters, unless you owned all 3 consoles at the time, so this made for interesting matches when guest character was allowed in rotation.

I was go good, from getting the basics on dreamcast, and a little in the arcades (original soul-blade/ edge version) my friends could select my character, AND select their own, use a health meter handicap boost, +150%, and id still wipe them clean, or ring them out 99% of the time,

To explain, this was NOT, because I was good with any single favourite character, in particular or at all, but because I learnt all moves, from all characters, enabling an element of guesstimation, as to what was coming up, how to avoid, or overpower it, etcetera...

This was, sheer Genius tactics, I thought, as a 12 year old boy.

These days, it's 'Extremely', hard to do that, with 'modern fighters' sporting rosters of upwards 30+ characters, specially, when they have disappearing/teleportation moves, you break the flow of the 'dance'.

Adding to the pain, most fighters have 'mechanics', for example, power meters, breakers, parry systems, finisher moves, sometimes tag team moves and what not, multiple xp bars to keep an eye on, so combine that with moveset memorisation, its almost impossible to 'dance', like it was back in the day, on Dreamcast Soulcalbur1.

It also introduced '8-way run' system, which was the smoothest thing at the time and revolutionary for a £200 console of its day.

To add, the way vertical attacks overpowered, horizontal, albeit with slower heavier, easier to read strikes, coupled to, horizontal ones, which couldn't be walked-round, but could be "ducked", it opened a literal 5th dimension to fighters,

The one player campaign was exceptional, -

my ALL TIME FAVOURITE GAME,

and for a fighting game, that is saying a lot

[FlavorLav01]

I’d prefer they reboot the OG Battle Arena Toshindin from the ps1 era. I think that could really hit the right note if done properly

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I would love that, I enjoyed those games so much, even got my friends into them when they came over.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Idk, I enjoyed SC2, but since then, they've just made the games more complicated and less accessible to casual fighting players. I wouldn't mind seeing them revive their Smash clone if they can make it different enough, and interesting enough to play.

[-Foxtrot]

I'm kind of surprised after buying Evo they didn't make a fighting game themselves.

[purple101]

All stars don’t count
Haha, not even close

[Rimeskeem]

No point on making a fighting game when it's already a fairly saturated area with established fan bases.

[DarXyde]

I have to disagree. The FGC is constantly looking to add more titles to the docket, provided they're competitive, balanced, and interesting. Even established franchises could get snubbed at Evo if the game isn't aptly competitive. Sony owns Evo, so why wouldn't they make new games and make them a thing if they want to do more with fighting games?

[porkChop]

I think at this point it would be really difficult to make a new AAA fighting game IP. Especially if it's going to be embraced by the FGC and be featured at Evo. It would have to set itself apart with unique hooks and mechanics, while having super tight controls, but still enough of a traditional feel to keep fans of the genre happy. That's easier said than done when the market is already saturated.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

A lot of IPs have tried to break in, but it's hard to beat staples like Guilty Gear, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Smash, King of Fighters, ect... There's so many well established fighters, people are regularly playing popular fighting games from a decade or two ago.

[isarai]

A Sony made fighting game.....🤔 I am intrigued

[blackblades]

Yeah, I can only see another all-star. Maybe get ark system to do a game from scratch. I do know one thing Sony isnt getting any one if there studio thats not experience at making fighting games.

[purple101]

https://www.google.com/sear...

[DarXyde]

The concept of Live service titles is really problematic, but it feels like few studios really know how to use it. I think Tekken and Fortnite really understand the assignment where you really pull in these interesting guest characters from strange places—if you want to count Smash in that, sure. If Sony is smart, they'll time content with the release of a relevant game.

[ModsDoBetter]

PS All Stars was great.
Would love a sequel with more icons from Aloy to modern Kratos and so on.
One can dream.

[Ironmike]

Capcim and Namco are the Kings of this genre no way Sony can make a game that beat tekken 8 or street fighter 6 Sega also releasing a new virtua fighter the genre well truly sewn up unless they come up with some new concept dead or live failed as live service game

[LabRat]

They don't have to "beat" those games. If they make an awesome fighter people will buy and play it. It might not have the legs that some of the others have but it could certainly still make them a profit

[Psychonaut85]

Blech

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Fighting games would be cool but make sure it's executed well and Quality.

[recoctimocassirnff]

I have no interest in fighting games, but is there a large enough market to support a live service fighting game?

[Tacoboto]

Same boat as you. SF6 is the first fighter I bought launch day in like 15 years, I can't imagine a new IP Gaas Fighter really taking off when the genre is so on point with existing IP, with Tekken, SF, and MK alone all just refreshed. 2025/2026 things might be different

[GhostScholar]

I wish Jim Ryan understood that he’s actively killing what made Sony so strong the last few generations (single player narrative driven artful games) they don’t need games as service to be pushed down our throats.

[S2Killinit]

But Ryan isnt even with Sony. Also, Sony needs to have at least some live service to compete with MS who ONLY has live service.

Sony even mentioned that they will do live service along with their story driven games. But some people are too focused on talking about live service as if it cant be done on the side.

[DOMination-]

Exactly - people are too focused on console sales but not understanding that MS is now making money from Halo, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, CoD as well as paid mods and mobile each month on top of game pass subs. I'm not saying that's right or good but.. Unfortunately, It all adds up.

Sony need to make some games that offer similar revenue streams. One of those slides proved that they were feeling the pressure and needed to act quickly. A good fighting game would certainly be very viable.

[S2Killinit]

To be fair, it’s much easier to create a good live service game than turn around the Xbox downward spiral in market share, but I do agree that MS has monetized all their games into live service while Sony has not but continues to get slack for “pushing live service down our throats”. It doesn’t even make sense.

[GhostScholar]

He may not be With Sony but he started this plan of focusing on live service games.

[S2Killinit]

Well now that he is gone, isn’t the issue resolved?

I mean MS has nothing but live service, but no one talks about their “live service focus”. Sony hasn’t had a single one out but we are preemptively worried?

[Whitey2k]

Why do they want a fighting live service. I'm not a big fan of them type of games I'm more of fps type of guy. Cod is OK but I'm more of battlefield and medel of Honour type I love large battles

[DOMination-]

- Remasters probably don't take up too much resource in ND. They probably have a small team on it with help from other support studios
- Games get greenlit and cancelled all the time and we usually don't know about it. Factions was unfortunately a high-profile case. It's disappointing if you were looking forward to it but the mistake ND/Sony made here was announcing it when it was clearly in pre-production. Something that Sony seem to be keen to not do since (unless they have to like with Wolverine)
- It's only been three years since their last game - sure it's a while but I can name countless studios who have been silent for longer.
- Should we not give ND the benefit of the doubt? I feel like they've earned it - Their record is extemporary and until we see their new projects, there's little evidence to suggest we should have a meltdown over the status or quality of them.