Tekken 7 Celebrates With Pricey Digital Editions

Although the game launched in arcades nearly seven years ago and has been on home consoles for over four years now, Tekken 7 has remained a huge success for the series. In fact, it recently surpassed eight million worldwide sales. That is an impressive number for a fighting game and for the series in particular, with the best-selling entry being the iconic Tekken 3 at 8.3 million sales.

In order to celebrate the incredible milestone, two new digital editions of the game have been announced and are now available to purchase. These editions bundle the base game with specific DLC offerings.

The first new edition is the awkwardly titled Tekken 7: Originals Edition. This includes the base game, the frame data display which many players would argue should be free, and each DLC character that is a Tekken series original. This means you’ll have mainstays like Anna Williams and Zafina, as well as newer characters like Fahkumram and Lidia Sobieska.

Characters that you won’t have are the DLC guest characters. This includes Geese Howard from many SNK fighting games, Noctis Lucis Caelum from Final Fantasy XV, and Negan from The Walking Dead TV series. Those characters’ respective stages are also not included.

The second new edition is Tekken 7: Definitive Edition. As the name would seem to imply in the video gaming world, this is meant to be the most comprehensive offering of the game. This includes all of the content from the Originals Edition as well as the guest characters, guest character stages, the three remaining DLC stages, an assortment of customization items and costumes, and the fan-favorite Ultimate Tekken Bowl mode.

Both of these seem to be replacing the previous and now less-deservingly named Tekken 7: Ultimate Edition, which included the base game and the first two seasons of content. That version has been taken off the console stores but is still available to purchase through Steam. It remains to be seen if it will be updated and taken off there as well.

Tekken 7: Rematch Edition is also missing from the main storefronts. This isn’t too surprising though, since it was arguably the most baffling way to buy the game. It included the base game and only the second season content, skipping over everything offered in the first season.

Reception to the announcement hasn’t been the best to put it lightly. While new editions like this are great for inviting in potential new players, the listed prices are more expensive than most would expect. Tekken 7: Originals Edition is $99.99 for consoles and $89.99 on Steam. Tekken 7: Definitive Edition on the other hand is $119.99 for consoles and $109.99 on Steam.

There are obviously no hard rules for pricing and publishers certainly know a lot more than the casual consumer. Typically whenever a game releases a bundled version of a game with its extra DLC content/expansions, it hits around the $60 mark or maybe a bit more. How reasonable it seems depends on how old the game and additional content are. Many seem to believe the pricing here isn’t reasonable at all.

As much as I enjoy the game, I do have to agree with that sentiment. The game is old. It has been wonderfully supported for so long, but it’s an old game. Not to mention that many people have bought into it when it’s been on sale (on PC it’s been available for $6 and under).

On top of that, the last piece of Tekken 7 content came out eight months ago. I mean, sure we got Kazuya in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the meantime, but that’s a good amount of time with nothing new. There’s obviously a lot to consider with all of the DLC that’s been made for it and I’m no expert when it comes to their pricing strategy, but $120 for everything is a terribly steep price.

Even though the fighting game community has grown so much in recent years, it has always been a genre that struggled with retaining players. This is even more true with convincing casual audiences to try it out. These new editions seem specifically targeted towards new players and I’m not sure many people will want to dive into a fighting game at the cost of $120.

I am sure that people will still buy the base game when it goes on sale for cheap though. The player count is more than healthy across all platforms so reactions to this won’t make too much of a difference. However, providing such an intimidating barrier to entry just seems like a huge misstep in my opinion.