Tekken Tag Tournament 2 arcade bound

TOKYO--The original Tekken Tag Tournament was one of the premium fighting games of its generation and was a big hit both in its original arcade form and later when the highly regarded PlayStation 2 version hit homes. Now, almost 10 years since its PS2 release, the popular fighting game is finally getting a sequel, simply titled Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Series producer Katsuhiro Harada made the announcement at the Tougeki Space Battle Opera finals, a fighting game event held concurrently with the Tokyo Game Show. Harada showed a teaser trailer for the game to the Tougeki crowd--when the trailer first began, it simply looked like a regular Tekken 6-type match between Kazuya and Jin Kazama. Suddenly, Asuka Kazama tags in, which caused the Tougeki crowd to cheer as they realised a new Tag game was being unveiled. The trailer then showed a few rapid cutscenes of battle, and it seems that as well as featuring the fast character switching of the original, Tekken Tag Tournament will allow players to set up combos directly from tags.

And now for the bad news: Tekken Tag Tournament is confirmed for release only in arcades, and only in Japan. No confirmation was given as to whether the game will eventually make it to home consoles. The last Tekken game--Tekken 6--was released last year for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 over a year after the original iteration hit the arcades. Tekken 5, however, took a mere three months to make the transition, while Tekken 4 took almost a year.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is due out in Japanese arcades some time in the summer of 2011, according to the teaser trailer, with other regions to be confirmed. Keep it tuned to GameSpot for more news on Tekken Tag Tournament 2 as it emerges.