Remember Team Battle mode in past Tekken games? If you’re hoping to see it added in Tekken 8, you might be waiting a while. It’s not because the dev team is against it, but the mode isn’t as popular as some people think.

This was revealed by Tekken’s Project Chief Director Katsuhiro Harada when we asked him about the possibility of Tekken 8 Team Battle possibly being added.

MP1st: Is there a chance for Team Battle to make a comeback?

Harada: That depends if there’s demand for it. We’ve been conducting user surveys at considerable cost since the offline era of fighting games. Since the move to online, we’ve been analyzing all kinds of data statistically.

While I’m sure that many have played the Team Battle mode with friends and family and have good memories associated with it, we found that it wasn’t played by players as much as the community might think.

The Team Battle mode in TEKKEN 2 was played the most, but as the series progressed, it became less and less chosen. If the mode were to make a comeback, people might play it nostalgically for the first few times. However, when looked at from the perspective of the entire player base, many players will call for different content to be added instead of a mode that is not demanded for. Moreover, in the modern age, adding such modes is not as cheap and easy as it previously was, and involves significant debugging costs and more.

All in all, the demand for the Team Battle mode has been low, and demand for it hardly accumulates. Some may say on social media sites that they want it, and while there may be anecdotal evidence to support the demand, what is crucial is the quantitative data. As such, we’d need to direct our efforts where there’s a more significant demand, as our time, resources, and development budget are not infinite.

Well, there you have it. From the sound of it, Team Battle’s implementation might not be worth the effort to put it in.

For those not familiar with the mode, it was first introduced in Tekken 2, and it was a mode that allowed players to make teams of up to eight fighters. After one fighter is defeated, the next one takes their place. The mode made an appearance in every major Tekken game entry except Tekken 7, and now, Tekken 8.

In the same chat, Harada disclosed that a disconnect rate display fix is planned to be released this April.

Stay tuned to our full chat with Harada hitting the site very soon.