Fans of Bandai Namco’s Tekken fighting game franchise have realized that Bandai Namco have pulled the breaks off the hype train leading to Tekken 8’s release come January 24th. In the wake of the final official Tekken 7 tournament (the VOD of which you can watch on the Tekken Twitch channel here) we were treated to not one, but two sneak peaks for the future of the biggest 3D fighting game franchise in the world: the cinematic opening for Tekken 8, as well as the reveal of the first DLC character for the game in Eddy Gordo.
The opening has been met with near universal praise online. The opening shot of the flying dove is very reminiscent of Tekken 5’s beloved opening; in fact, the entire scene is basically a giant homage to Tekken 5’s iconic opening scene from the smash cuts to various fighters, the endearing vocal track, and the shots of Jin being mysterious. There are some interesting story bits to latch on to here, namely that it seems Jun Kazama might still be dead after all, as she’s only seen in a heavenly setting so she may be communicating from the afterlife, and that longtime series friends Paul Phoenix and Marshall Law are fighting each other, implying they’re on different sides of the Jin/Kazuya war (though there’s a funny theory going around that they’re just training and don’t realize that there’s an army of Jack 7s getting mowed down around them).
And in equally important news, Eddy Gordo was announced as the first DLC character of Tekken 8’s first season sporting a new look. Eddy is the first of four characters, the rest of which will be coming in summer, autumn, and winter with Eddy himself coming out in the spring. The reveal of Eddy specifically is hilarious in hindsight considering the slight Twitter drama Tekken director Harada got into recently specifically over Eddy. Though more importantly, Eddy being DLC character lends more credence to the leaked DLC roster that was shown early on the German PSN store. If that DLC leak turns out to be true then expect Armor King and Roger the Kangaroo to make their returns alongside a newcomer named Xiao Meng.
But regardless of who the DLC is and whether or not we know who they are one thing’s for certain, Tekken 8 is starting its life with a lot of momentum, and everybody who enjoys fighting games is going to be looking to see how the game develops from here.