Tournament circuits for fighting games have grown in numbers over the years. With Capcom Pro Tour being the prime example, other fighting game series such as Injustice, Killer Instinct and King Of Fighters have follow suit. Now here comes a new challenger.
Bandai Namco, in partnership with Twitch, has announced its own tournament circuit for Tekken 7. Called the Tekken World Tour, players of three regions (The Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) compete for points in online matches and official tournaments to gain points, with the top 5 of each region’s leaderboard, plus the Tekken 7 champion at EVO, will compete in the Tekken World Tour Finals event, with up to $200,000 USD of prize money up for grabs.
The setup is similar to the Capcom Pro Tour with one big difference- players are region-locked. While there is no specific barring of international players playing in tournaments outside their home region, points are only given to players of the same region of the tournament. Events are divided into various tiers- Online Events, Challenger Events, high-tier Master Events, and EVO- the biggest fighting game tournament- being its own separate tier. There will also be a Regional Finals, with winners walking away with the highest tier of points before the Tekken World Tour Finals.
The first event on the calendar is CEO on June 16, for the Americas. Asia Pacific’s first event in the Tekken World Tour is Thaiger Uppercut happening on July 1.
With Tekken 7’s console release imminent, this will surely drum up interest for competitive players to pick up the 3D brawler soon.