Never before in the history of video games has a character been as wrong as Raven in Tekken 5‘s opening for declaring, “Heihachi Mishima is dead”. For a long time the first season of DLC for Bandai Namco’s Tekken 8 was thought to have been solved when someone dug through the files and found some interesting names. We assumed the first season of DLC would be Eddy Gordo, Lidia Sobieska, Craig Marduk, and Fahkumram. Eddy and Lidia were released, showing a pattern and seemingly confirming the leak but, much like in the plot of the games themselves, here comes Heihachi Mishima to throw a wrench into everything, returning from the dead for a third time.
The Heihachi trailer comes heavy with Buddhist imagery, likely leaning on the themes of reincarnation as Heihachi himself emerges from the flames of the volcano he was dumped in in Tekken 7 seemingly supercharged and younger. There’s also a mysterious masked monk practicing Heihachi’s moves in a temple courtyard as a narrator exclaims that his body and technique are perfect, but his mind is imbalanced. With the ending title card loudly proclaiming “The King of Iron Fist Resurrection”, as well as the monk themes there may be more to Heihachi’s return than anticipated.
We’ll know for sure soon, though. As Heihachi’s trailer also heavily features new cutscenes for an expanded story mode involving many of the characters in the base roster but more heavily featuring Heihachi himself (obviously), Eddy, and Lidia from the DLC. Going from that, we may see hints of whoever the fourth DLC character is in this trailer or in future trailers so keep an eye out for that.
Indeed, Heihachi’s reveal was a shock to everyone. As stated, most people assumed it would be Marduk coming next since Heihachi died in Tekken 7, and outside of the game’s story Heihachi by that point had lost two very beloved voice actors in Daisuke Gōri and Unshō Ishizuka, many people believed that it was simply time for the character to be retired, especially with the introduction of Reina Mishima who seemed to carry on many of Heihachi’s legacy moves, but it seems that those plans have changed, and Heihachi is fresh and looking for a new fight. Two things are for certain, though, Mishimas never truly die and the future of Tekken 8 is looking pretty exciting.