It’s been a long week for Tekken’s most decorated player Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique. After discovering that visa issues would prevent him from attending EVO Japan and the Riyadh Cup, he then later discovered that Tekken 8 Game Director Katsuhiro Harada had blocked him on X (formerly Twitter).
The Pakistani esports pro posted a screenshot proving he had been blocked and expressed his surprise with a flurry of question marks and the fighting game community were equally baffled.
There was immediate anger in the replies with some coming to the conclusion that Arslan Ash had been blocked because of his vocal criticisms of Tekken 8, with one fan saying: “Harada and Murray are straight-up sabotaging their own game at this point. Blocking the best Tekken player, zero communication, and ignoring real issues. Instead of listening, they’re shutting people down. It’s embarrassing.”
Another fan feared that Arslan Ash may leave the game and begin competing in the newly released Fatal Fury City of the Wolves: “The face of Tekken being blocked by the head of Tekken. Insane, especially when you realise that Arslan could legit stop playing Tekken and go pro in CotW extremely quickly, especially with EWC round the corner.” Said fan then added: “I don’t think people realise that if Arslan decided to just stop playing Tekken a massive amount of players would probably drop Tekken.”
Arslan Ash is now unblocked
However, this all thankfully turned out to be a major misunderstanding.
Game Director Harada took to his own Twitter to clarify that he had mistakenly blocked Arslan Ash and that this happens to him quite regularly while navigating the app in his second language and trying to report trolls in his replies. He revealed he has even accidentally blocked the official Tekken account before in a similar fashion. Arslan Ash spoke with Harada in private DMs and he later posted an update to clarify that the error had been resolved: “I thought maybe I did something wrong but it was just a misunderstanding. Everything is good.”
And while Harada had everyone’s attention, he used the moment to answer a few community concerns, including an update on accessibility features coming to Tekken 8:
“We are still working with several Japanese associations, organizations, and hospitals to come up with update ideas for accessibility features. Some features may be reflected in future updates. We would also like to improve accessibility features that are currently in place.”
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
