The 2019 Tekken World Tour Finals in Bangkok, Thailand have concluded after an exciting (if somewhat expected) Grand Finals between Japanese player Yuta “Chikurin” Take and Soo-hoon “Ulsan” Lim from South Korea. Even after expansive balance adjustments for Season 3 of Tekken 7, certain characters still dominate in the competitive circuit, and this year’s Grand Finals gave showcase of two of the game’s most lethal characters. “Ulsan” played Kazumi, his main character, and “Chikurin” brought many Tekken World Tour Finals predictions to fruition by going with Akuma, the unstoppable (and maybe cheap) crossover character from Capcom’s 2D-style Street Fighter series. Chikurin’s Akuma defeated Ulsan to become the Tekken World Tour 2019 Champion, winning the lion’s share of this year’s $250,000 prize pool and this very impressive trophy.
The complete list of the Tekken World Tour Top 8 is below. The stream is available on the official Tekken Twitch channel.
1. THY|Chikurin (Geese, Akuma)
2. Fate|Ulsan (Kazumi, Bob)
3. ROX|Knee (Steve, Paul, Bryan)
4. RB|Anakin (JACK-7)
5. UYU|Double (Law)
5. Yamasa|Nobi (Dragunov)
7. UYU|LowHigh (Shaheen)
7. JDCR (Dragunov)
The Tekken World Tour for 2019 also brought a number of announcements and new trailers for upcoming Season 3 Tekken 7 content. The first new footage was a gameplay trailer for upcoming (super cool) blind Wing Chun-esque Leroy Smith, a new, original character first revealed at EVO 2019. Leroy Smith’s new gameplay trailer shows his dog, his staff, and rather high number of parries that will really reward a player with strong reads. Check out the new music video-themed footage below, which includes Leroy’s Rage Art based around the infamous one-inch-punch.
Bandai Namco also revealed the next DLC fighter to release for Tekken 7′s third season–Ganryu, a sumo-style character returning from previous Tekken games, will become available with Leroy Smith on Tuesday, December 10th. Ganryu, who will forever be the victim of his unrequited love for fellow Tekken character Julia Chang, is reintroduced to the world of Tekken as Julia’s biggest fan. On stage, Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada said that his own face was used to do the motion capture for Ganryu’s Julia-style stream sign-off. Being bigger character, Ganryu looks to have armor properties on many of his moves along with a fighting style based on hand slaps. Dosukoi!
The final character reveal for this year’s Tekken World Tour was brand new and unexpected, and right at home at the Finals in Bangkok. The next martial artist to join Tekken 7 is Fahkumram, a Muay Thai fighter with many visual and combat-style similarities to Street Fighter‘s Sagat (but not the Tiger Shots). Fahkumram looks to have undergone a series of biological experiments and gets dropped into the arena (which will be a playable stage with floor breaks) like the Tyrant in the first Resident Evil games. Fahkumram and the Thailand-themed stage will release sometime in Spring 2020.
Season 3 of Tekken 7 also includes several free quality of life upgrades coming on December 10th, including a new “My Replays” and “Tips” features for studying past matches and upgrades to Practice mode that include a punishment trainer to help new fighters get into the game with more confidence. The new Frame Data Display is premium content that comes with the Season 3 pass, or available separately for $3-$4.
Bandai Namco also announced that the Tekken World Tour is officially going forward in 2020. The next wave of the Tour will begin in April, with more details coming as next Spring approaches.
Tekken 7 and Season 3 DLC fighter Zafina are available now for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Leroy Smith, Ganryu, Frame Data Display, and the free balance adjustments and training features will be available starting December 10th.