Katsuhiro Harada of Bandai Namco confirmed that the crossover project featuring the popular video games "Tekken" and "Street Fighter" is still alive.
According to Harada, the game, titled "Tekken X Street Fighter" has already entered its development stages.
The idea of a crossover game between "Tekken" and "Street Fighter" was unveiled by the Japanese game publisher during the Comic-Con 2010 event held in San Diego, according to Game Spot.
In the event, executives from "Street Fighter" publisher Capcom were discussing the future of the fighting game series. They were then joined by "Tekken" creator and Bandai producer Harada.
Since the two companies and their games have always been considered as rivals in the video game industry, Bandai and Capcom talked about the possibility of seeing characters from "Tekken" and "Street Fighter" take on one another in the same game.
However, since that event, which was almost five years ago, neither Capcom nor Bandai have released announcements detailing the progress of "Tekken X Street Fighter."
This led many gamers to speculate that development of the game has stopped.
But recently, during an interview with Japanese gaming site Famitsu (via Siliconera), Harada updated fans of the two franchises that Bandai is still serious about the crossover game.
"That's not true," he said in response to the rumors that the game has been cancelled.
"I've been saying this since before, but the fact of the matter is that we're at a pretty far stage into its development," Harada added.
Various sources noted that the reason behind the game's slow development is probably due to the long list of projects that both Bandai and Harada are currently working on.
This includes "Pokken Tournament," "Tekken 7" and the virtual reality game "Summer Lesson" for Project Morpheus.
Despite his busy schedule, Harada reiterated that he has not forgotten about "Tekken X Street Fighter." In fact, he noted that he and his team have already come up with a character roster for the game. They were also able to iron out some of the game's technical aspects.
"It might seem like we haven't started on it at all, but the character lineup has been decided upon since a very long time ago, and we've already finished the polygon models, moves and systems," he told Famitsu.
Harada, however, did not reveal which characters will be featured in the upcoming fighting game. He also did not provide a timeline regarding the game's possible release.
The upcoming "Tekken X Street Fighter" from Bandai should not be confused with Capcom's "Street Fighter X Tekken." Although both have the same theme, the latter came out in 2012 and features a 2D-style of game play.
"Tekken X Street Fighter," on the other hand, will be in 3D like the other "Tekken" titles.
