Free Step Dodge

It seems to be pretty standard for this phase of the fighting game genre (FGG). Since SF4, Street Fighter has been the trendsetter for the FGG, which the majority of the other FG's follow off of. There's a downswing now because SF5 is old and there's not as much bringing the hype at the moment. GGST is likely the best bet at the moment (along with T7, which is still going surprisingly strong).

This downswing is also compounded by the pandemic, which exposed a lot of FG's for their "behind-the-curve" design dispositions, most notably their inadequate netcode. Other FG's such as KOF15 and DNF Duel haven't made a big enough impact to move the needle, and still suffer a bit from dated game designs and offerings. Japanese FG's getting rollback netcode implemented as late as 2021 was unacceptable.

They should've had GGPO rollback implemented back in 2016 by the latest. SF5 screwing up its rollback likely made things worse for the FGG. Japanese developers would've been less likely to attempt implementing rollback into their own games, going the safe/cheaper route with established delayed netcode.

Since the start of generation 8, the FGG is basically in a 1 (or 2) game per generation mode + seasons. I'm cool with that. Don't care to abandon games every couple of years like pre-MK11 NRS games. Personally I'm very curious to see how Project L fares. The FGC needs a Western fighter that is not developed by NRS (along with a new KI badly too!) Japanese developers can be too stubborn and too slow to adapt.

Tekken I feel is one of the few fighting games that a lot of casuals play compared to something like SF or KoF and it was going very strongly during a time when people were searching for alternatives to SF5, its kind of like MK11 but the latter doesn't have as big of a competitive scene or at the very least as many participants at tournaments as Tekken does now. SF5 is doing quite well too but only in Japan.

Of course, the pandemic didn't help at all and from what I've seen and heard it almost killed all arcades in Asia, only the big names remained like Mikado but who knows for how long they'll be going, offline tournaments also weren't much of a thing during the time which unveiled a lot of issues regarding these games. Although the current way of fighting games being supported is one that I don't have problems with

you have to think about how much you're given for the price that they're asking. MK11 out of all the "current" fighting games has the most content out of all the relatively recent fighting games but outside of that game and SCVI I don't really know if the 60-70 dollar release price is something that'd be worth it for what you are given in return.

I am curious about Project L myself, it'll most likely have a decent playerbase either way since its League we're talking about but we might end up seeing a long term change in the industry depending on how successful it'll be. Multiversus was a success and we've also seen fighting games like DOA, KI and VF take a shot at going F2P with some games like SF5 having F2P elements with little to some success.

Project L and SF6 are taking steps in the right direction, especially SF6 since it might offer a lot both as a casual and as a competitive game which is good since SF games set trends that other companies end up following afterwards. I'd say that the waiting time and the longevity are good things as long as the product's going to feel complete starting from its release up until the end of its support.

Fighting games will genuinely thrive once they appropriately appeal to the casual audience and properly catch up to modern gaming trends. Project L (and SF6 to a lesser extent) are the best bets to move the FGG forward due to Riot's heavy experience with real esports, and better understanding of modern gaming conventions.

SF6 is positioning itself to be a trendsetter this gen, and does appear to be making moves to evolve the FGG positively. This is good for FG's as a whole. Please don't screw it up Capcom.

Tekken 8 is a wildcard because Tekken 7 is quite frankly more successful than it probably deserves on paper. It has the least amount of content of any mainline Tekken game, mediocre, subpar graphics, awful online offerings & netcode, along with a slightly dated mechanical design/animations.

What the game benefits from is massively on-point marketing & promotion, a passionate fanbase, hype tournaments, spectator-friendly visuals, relatively positive word-of-mouth, and a large quantity of players online that don't know what they're doing. (Note, I hate the 420 character limit haha.)

I've been saying for a long time that Tekken 7 felt like a disappointment during its 1st season, super lackluster casual content, lackluster 1st season pass, story that makes DOA6's story mode look good (although Tekken's story has been on the bad side of things since 6) and the reason why it ended up being as successful as it did were the points that we've mentioned up until now

Meanwhile for SF the reception has been positive ever since Champion Edition came out and they truly seem to have found their way, being also apparent with the successful release of Capcom Fighting Collection. If there was a time to ask Capcom for a new Darkstalkers game, then this might be the best time to do so.

We know too little about T8 to judge but from what we've received so far I'd say that things look promising. The future for fighting games seems bright but with the right steps these games could offer more than just an "arcade/esport" experience, like, the old games could be put into a collection with added online for games like Tekken, VF, DOA but they don't do anything with them because they might not make money.