Tekken 8 will finally be getting Heihachi Mishima as he will be joining the roster in Fall 2024 as the third DLC character.
The big news was announced at EVO 2024 and it’s a welcome announcement as fans have been waiting for the King of the Iron Fist since he wasn’t part of the roster at launch. It made sense at the time as he met his end during Tekken 7’s story, but he’s been such a mainstay that fans wanted him back in some form.
Not all fights end in cliffhangers.
The story of #TEKKEN8 is far from over 👊 pic.twitter.com/nQM48icoHc— TEKKEN (@TEKKEN) July 21, 2024
We had the chance to speak to Tekken’s Katsuhiro Harada and Kohei Ikeda about Heihachi’s return, and they shared the thought process about bringing him back from the dead.
“Tekken 7 really focused on the story arc between Heihachi and his son, Kazuya, and so, we really wanted to show that kind of final conclusion, and he seemed to die at that point,” Harada said. “But then, after that happened, Tekken 8 was released, and we put a lot of effort into the story and the fans really seemed to be engaged with that. And as that was happening, we were kind of feeling that the players kind of missed him as well. Obviously, we did, too. So, it was kind of decided later on that we would do that.”
Despite that, preperations were being made in the background to set the stage for Heihachi’s return.
“We did kind of make the preparations for Heihachi,” Ikeda said. “Reina was one due to that link that she has to Heihachi. And then, if you look closely at the 30th anniversary logo, you can see that it’s comprised of Devil’s wings. There are two different styles, but if you take a step back and look at, it actually looks like the silhouette of Heihachi’s face. Right? So, we were doing some of the preparations in the background.”
While they weren’t ready to share many more details on Heihachi, there did have a few teases to share.
“Like you imagine, it is a bit too early to be talking many details about his character, but to give some hints, he has a very powerful play style throughout the series, so we tried to recreate that in Tekken 8,” Ikeda said. “So, the focus is on that. But also, if you saw the story hints about the monks in the footage and what he has to do with them, that will maybe dictate some of his move set as well.”
Heihachi is the third DLC character for Tekken 8 and follows Eddy Gordo and Lidia Sobieska. While his arrival is exciting, there is plenty more for fans to look forward to, including the first ever story DLC in the Tekken franchise. This new chapter of ‘The Dark Awakens’ will continue the clash between the Kazama and Mishima families and will be available as a free update for all players in the future.
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Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
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