Harada: 40 People Currently Working on Tekken X Street Fighter

The Tekken series is hitting its 20th anniversary and the Street Fighter franchise is pushing 28 -- it's about time we had a rematch between the Iron Fist and the World Warriors.

In an interview with Polygon, Tekken series director spoke a lot about the history of the series, Pokken Tournament and Tekken 7. While we're excited for Tekken 7 and the Pokemon brawler, we were particularly interested to hear what he had to say about Tekken X Street Fighter, the rematch between two of the fighting genre's biggest franchises. Street Fighter X Tekken came out in 2012 and featured Capcom and Bandai Namco's best warriors duking it out on a 2D engine primarily designed by Capcom. Just as Street Fighter X Tekken was more inclined with the Street Fighter series' style of combat, Tekken X Street Fighter will be developed by Bandai Namco Games, providing more Tekken-like combat, including the series' smaller jumps and 3D background movement.

While it's been over three years since the last crossover between the two series, Harada promises the next entry is still in development. Harada claims there are about 40 people developing it, but some of those studio members are bouncing back and forth between Tekken 7 and Tekken X Street Fighter, with the prior game being the current focus of the overall studio. While he couldn't confirm if the game would launch within the next two years, he does want Tekken X Street Fighter to surprise the fighting game community.

"Tekken 7 will be our big thing for the next while," Harada said. "People have been talking about [Tekken X Street Fighter] for such a long time that they aren't going to be surprised if you just release it normally. I don't know if that's what we have planned, but we do plan to have some kind of surprise."

Just as long as we can pit Devil Jin vs. Evil Ryu, Heihachi vs. M. Bison, Paul Phoenix vs. Guile and Devil Kazuya vs. Oni (Akuma), we'll be happy.