This past weekend the 2014 Evolution Championship Series, “Evo” for short, took place. Evo, the largest and most prestigious fighting game tournament was hosted in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Westgate Hotel and Casino this year.
Among the many exciting reveals, we were treated to a very short teaser for Tekken 7, the latest game in the Tekken series. Although the news of Tekken 7 was leaked earlier this week, it was still awesome to see the game get officially announced.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/R3LuFSZqp4E[/youtube]
Check out the press release issued by Bandai Namco below!
“JULY 1X, 2014 – CARY, NC – Today at the Evolution Championship Series (EVO) fighting game tournament held in the Westgate Las Vegas Hotel & Resort, BANDAI NAMCO announced TEKKEN 7, the latest installment of the venerable franchise, powered by the award-winning Unreal Engine 4.
“The power and flexibility means that we can focus our efforts on making Tekken 7 the best possible game without worrying about spending time creating a stand-alone graphic engine,” said Katsuhiro Harada, TEKKEN series Executive Producer/Game Director at BANDAI NAMCO. “With Unreal Engine 4, we could rapidly achieve visual quality expected on next-gen platform and go beyond it. Not only is Unreal Engine 4 powerful and easy to use, but it allows us to immediately bring Tekken 7 to any platform we desire.”
Tekken 7 took center stage at EVO, bringing the competition to a halt with a sizzling trailer hinting towards the ambitious technical feats that the Unreal Engine 4 will make possible for Harada and the TEKKEN development team. Working closely with the Epic Games engine group in Japan and leveraging the might of UE4, these two teams are fueling the next generation of fighting games.
“The Tekken franchise is beloved and we couldn’t be more excited to be working with the talented team at BANDAI NAMCO,” said Taka Kawasaki, Studio Head at Epic Games Japan. “This marriage is perfect – the most powerful engine in gaming along with one of the most enduring brands in fighting games. We have no doubt that these forces coming together will yield fantastic results.”
Tekken 7 joins a long line of games that have been announced recently and shown to be powered by Unreal Engine 4. Crackdown, EVE: Valkyrie, Fable Legends and many others round out the rapidly growing list of games using the engine. Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics technology, world-class toolset and scalability across PC, console and mobile platforms. Since its public launch as a $19 per month subscription-based service at the 2014 Game Developers Conference (GDC), Unreal Engine 4 has been evolving at a rapid pace. Development of the engine has been driven further by feedback from the community and numerous updates from Epic’s team of world-class engineers.”
I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’m looking forward to seeing what a Tekken game will look like running on UE4. How do you feel about this announcement? Did you watch Evo? Let us know in the comments below!
