Here comes a new challenger! Rising Thunder gets to the core of fighting games

Fighting games, particularly the 2D sort, are hard to get in to. Unless you’re well, well acquainted with fighting game basics, the barrier of entry for digital pugilism is exceptionally high – which is why most people who play them are content to mash buttons for an hour or two, before becoming bored and moving on. To become good at them takes hours of dedication. Hours that span over weeks, months and even years.

It’s a problem – and it’s one that makes Fighting Games less appealing to the casual onlooker. To get to the heart of the problem, former Street Fighter champion and FG enthusiast Seth Killian, along with Radiant Entertainment (the founders of EVO and FG enthusiast site Shouryuken)  are making a new fighting game; one that focus on the core of fighting games instead of the sorts of combos that require superhuman dexterity and 15 fingers.

“When you look at the essence of fighting games, the core elements of the game – not the upper-level, really-advanced-player stuff – is locked behind this huge execution wall,” Killian said to Kotaku.

“I talk about fighting games being a mix between speed chess and poker. It’s like if we were playing speed chess and [I said something like] ‘I’m a player who really doesn’t know how to use the knights, so I just let them sit there. Pawns really aren’t my deal.’ I don’t know if what you’re doing is really playing chess, then. But with fighting games, that’s really what most people’s experience is.”

“Depending on your level of natural dexterity, free time and things like that, you’re looking at one month, six months, a year to just become totally proficient with the basic moves of the game. Fireballs, uppercuts, that kind of thing.

Basically, at that point, once you become proficient at those kinds of things, then, now, you are playing fighting games. It doesn’t mean that you’re actually good at fighting games. To bring it back to chess terms, you are now able to move our castles and you can play with the pawns as well.”

So his new game, Rising Thunder, distils fighting games to the core components, with special moves that can be done with a single button press. It dispenses with needlessly long and complicated combos, and focuses on the fast-paced-chess-like aspects of fighting games – allowing less-skilled players experience what makes the genre so special to those who are able to spend the time necessary to fall in love with them.

On top of that, it looks rather good, too. It’s coming exclusively to PC, with a technical alpha kicking off next week.

Here’s a look at a teaser from EVO, followed by some gameplay vids. It’s like Rise of the Robots or One Must Fall, only less crap.

Last Updated: July 21, 2015