One Thing That is Missed in Fighting Games (and attempts to add it)

However awful this thing may sound here on DashFight, but there are other gaming genres out there in the wild, not only fighting. Sure, people can play whatever they want to — and we do, as explorations of various gaming dimensions may bring emotions and ideas.

I got some of those recently, while spending some time with one certain freshly updated shooting game. It’s not like I enjoyed it too much, to be honest, but those emotions and ideas were (and are) pretty interesting. 

In quite a few other genres, you don’t play alone. You have a team, and the success strongly depends on team coordination and sincere contribution from everyone.

In a fighting game, you are most likely alone, fighting that other person; no cool team communication and simple excitement of doing something together. That is the feature of the genre; it is as it is.

Some advantages are also here. No one can ruin your victory except for you; no one to blame. It’s an especially powerful factor for beginner- and mid-levels, where teammates may quite often be… bad. Or it is you who could become a bad teammate and let the other players down, which is also not the best feeling. Nothing like that happens in Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.

But with skill development, we may feel … emptiness. No one is around to truly celebrate victories with. Opponents? Even if you are friends, this is too salty to demand congratulations on your glorious W. Team emotions on an advanced level, when you play with regular people, are real treasures.

Can fighting games offer excitement of the same sort? It’s already something from the category of ideas, as I’m not going to compare team and 1v1 competitions (those couple paragraphs above are enough, and “Why not both?”).

Let’s just distract ourselves from those endless lab experiments and get aware of team experiences. Some of them are available in fighting games — but only to a certain extent.

Team Modes in Fighting Games

It is possible to fight as a team in a few titles thanks to specially dedicated modes.

Also, some team competitions are possible in literally any game, if you set the rules — and some tournament organizers do that pretty actively.

Platform Fighters

Okay, this is probably the only sub-genre with “native” team modes. 2v2 fights may even become the primary mode.

Super Smash. Bros. Ultimate has introduced this option with its co-op fights. The feature is pretty fun for casual players — for local parties and for online matches. The esports dimension of team fights is still considered rather secondary to 1v1 fights, and Smash tournaments highlight Singles brackets as their primary events.

Brawlhalla has separate modes for team fights: Friendly and Ranked. Quite interestingly, you cannot get a random teammate in the competitive matches; only someone from your friend list can join. It’s pretty understandable, as real team combos and actions are possible only with training.

Brawlhalla regularly invites players to team competitions with special rules, like mixes of fighting with volleyball or football. These modes are fun, and some even have dedicated community tournaments.

As for Doubles esports — Blue Mammoth Game conducts official 2v2 Championships. It’s a fully-fledged league with pretty decent prize pools. Community events also have separate brackets for teams and individual players.

MultiVersus tries to be different from the competitors by making team fights the main mode. It’s not (only) about marketing. The movesets have been built with team fight options in mind, like having strictly supporting moves. It would be interesting to wait for the full release to see where this idea will bring the game.

I will not list all the other platformer fighters; the point is pretty clear. Team fights are a strong part of this sub-genre. Even if they are not separated in a special mode, players can join the party in the main one.

Classic Fighting Games

Having no dedicated modes is… the right decision for the genre. It’s technically difficult to implement, and it doesn’t feel like a good idea even in theory.

But something can be done here, and it actually has been done. I’m talking about team competitions while still having 1v1 fights at each specific moment.

Dragon Ball FighterZ has one (no, I’m not about the tag-team feature). It’s an option for creating Ring matches — players can start a Party match, so every participant controls one character. Three fighters and three players on one side and the same on the other. One who controls the active character can tag teammates at any moment. 

Street Fighter has nothing of that sort, but that did not prevent Capcom from creating a Street Fighter League, with 4v4 team fights. It works slightly differently than in DBFZ, as each player has a full 1v1 match. But the teams earn points to take first place in general standing. The downside is that the tournament takes too much time, and only dedicated fans stick to this show.

Other classic fighting games, such as Mortal Kombat or Tekken may have tournaments of a similar format. For example, teams play till the last competitor standing, or lost players may replace each other until one team gets points for traditional Bo5 wins. For instance, Summer Jam 2023 offered such formats for its first day, with SF6 2v2 and Tekken 7 3v3. Such tournaments are never the main attraction of the fighting esports events.

These are basically all the options for team matches we have in the fighting genre. Only platformer fighters implemented this idea fully. Special agreements among players are needed to make the fun possible in most classic fighting games.

Have I missed something? What do you think about team co-ops in gaming? Please let us know in the comments below.