The Beauty of Martial Arts in Videogames

I am an avid fan of martial arts as a whole; I spend a lot of my time researching and watching videos regarding different martial arts styles, along with watching tournaments, such as UFC or ONE championship. Videogames often take massive inspiration from many of these different styles, and in this piece, I’ll be discussing some of my favourite examples.

Sloclap is an indie studio that made two of the most interesting representations of martial arts in videogames: Sifu and Absolver. The former is a title primarily focused on kung fu, a Chinese martial art. Sloclap had reached out to Chinese teams to help make sure that it was as accurate as possible. The combat was also helped along by a kung fu master — a sifu — to the locations and environments. Absolver was designed with much less focus on authentic martial arts in mind, being more fantastical; however, there were still a wide variety of styles interwoven into the game. The combat in this title was much more freeform, allowing a combination of moves to create a unique and original form by utilising many moves from a variety of techniques. This even stretched to some very unique and interesting techniques, such as Stagger, heavily inspired by the Chinese Drunken Fist, a Chinese martial art that imitates the movements of drunken people: to take advantage of the momentum and unpredictability of a constantly moving combatant. The Faejin method is also one of the more unique, taking heavy influence from Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, utilised purely for practical applications, from self-defence to self-improvement.

Fighting games as a genre regularly integrate lots of different martial arts styles; both Tekken and Street Fighter typically involve characters with a huge variety of both common and much more unique arts. Some of my favourite examples from Street Fighter are Sagat, a Muay Thai practitioner; Ryu, Ken, Gouken, and Akuma, all using variations on Shotokan karate, which admittedly doesn’t actually have many links to the karate style of the same name. Muay Thai is a Thai martial art focusing on the utilisation of all limbs of the body, namely the fists, elbows, knees, and shins. Sagat is inspired by a combatant of the same name, “Sagat Petchyindee”. The real-life artist retired at the age of only 28, albeit with a fantastic record of 266-51.

The Shotokan practitioners all use them in vastly different ways, despite being the same style. Gouken, the master of Ryu and Ken, uses a very pure version of Shotokan, which at its core is an assassination martial art — at least in the games — as the real version of Shotokan is a much more traditional form of karate. Ryu focused on learning a pure form of the art, trying to nullify the killing intent and become a pure fighter. Ken ended up modernising the art instead of striving for self-improvement; he wanted to grow to be the world’s best karateka. Akuma, however, is much different: he was the brother/training partner of Gouken; regardless, Akuma gave into his “Satsui no Hado”, essentially gaining power from embracing the killing intent within him, giving him much more power.

Tekken also manages to introduce a large amount of unique martial arts styles, most notably Eddy Gordo, King, and Dragunov. Eddy Gordo is a practitioner of Capoeira, a Brazillian martial art rooted in dance. In the 16th century, slaves developed Capoeira as a style of self-defence disguised as dance, so the slave owners didn’t manage to catch on with what they were doing. After many years, Capoeira was developed into more than just a combat art and grew to have much more cultural significance. King is a professional wrestler, using many traditional moves, from suplexes to power bombs. He has many of the trademarks of a wrestler, with a Luchador mask along with an on-brand stance. Lucha libre is a style of wrestling born out of Mexico, heavily focused on a combination of grabs and holds, along with incredibly acrobatic manoeuvres. Dragunov is one of the most interesting examples, using a variant of Sambo, a Russian martial art which was formed by using Judo as a base to create a new style. Dragunov’s style is derived from the militaristic form of Sambo, which is taught to Spetsnaz soldiers as a prime form of hand-to-hand combat in live combat.

Videogames have often taken huge inspiration from martial arts, but more recently, they’ve really stretched out into some much more lesser-known and obscure arts, and who’s to know where it’s going next?