Let the Past Die, Kill It If You Have To
Every big fighting game franchise has their iconic characters. Street Fighter has Ryu and Chun-Li, Mortal Kombat has Scorpion and Sub Zero. In the previous Tekken game, one of its characters died who had been there since the beginning. The producer for Tekken 8 confirms that he will not be coming back.
In an interview with The Gamer, Tekken 8 producer Katsuhiro Harada gave an update on Heihachi. It is pretty odd that we need to explicitly ask if a character will be returning when we saw them die, isn’t it? That’s just one of the fighting game tropes though. No one is really dead forever it seems.
At the end of Tekken 7’s story, Heihachi battled his son Kazuya in the middle of a volcano. After several different phases and forms, Kazuya finally kills his father. Kazuya throws his father’s body off of a cliff into the lava, reminiscent of what Heihachi did to his son as a child.
While that conflict has been central to many of the Tekken games, it seems that Bandai Namco is finally putting it to rest. To be clear, Heihachi has “died” before, but now he’s super dead. Harada said that his team was instructed to make his death as convincing as possible. Molten lava will do that to you. Who will take over as the main villain of Tekken 8?
Heihachi has been in every Tekken game except Tekken Mobile. The only other characters that have appeared more often than him are King, Nina Williams, and Paul Phoenix.
Tekken 8 does not have a release date yet. It will be coming out on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
Do you want Heihachi to return? Let us know in the comments below.