Pakistani players such as Arslan Ash, Atif Butt, and others have been excelling in the professional Tekken scene, yet the game’s director admits he was totally unaware of how it gained such immense popularity in the country.
Speaking at the recently held Red Bull Golden Letters event in London, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada said in an interview that the dominance of players from Pakistan “came out of nowhere.”
“We never knew they were playing Tekken. Even now we’ve never been to Pakistan, so I’m still quite interested to hear why they became so obsessed with Tekken and so good at the game”, Harada-san explained.
Michael Murray, the game’s producer, told Asian Network that he “loved it when Arslan came on the scene.”
“No one knew him. Then out of nowhere someone no one’s talking about comes along and you find this other community and then Arslan says it’s not just him. He says they’re all strong in Pakistan, and everyone’s like ‘What?’ It was just such an amazing story and I still remember how exciting it was to hear that”, he elaborated.
Director Katsuhiro Harada has been working on the series for 30 years and says the competitive scene really kicked off around the release of Tekken 7. Presently, the Pakistani players are in Thailand for Thaiger Uppercut, the last Master level event on the Tekken World Tour calendar.