Despite the efforts of the genre’s leading names to broaden audience appeal in recent years, the one-on-one fighter still hasn’t quite managed to break out of its niche. It is a bold decision, then, for such a game to deliberately leave the past console generation behind – albeit one in keeping with the spirit of a series that has never lacked courage. And that choice may well pay off. Not since 1998, when its third entry paired elegant motion capture with some of the crunchiest action PS1 could handle, has a new Tekken felt like quite such an evolutionary leap forward, nor such an essential part of any fighting-game enthusiast’s lineup.
