2023 has been one of the biggest years for fighting games in history, thanks to huge releases in beloved series like and , as well as smaller titles like and Fraymakers. Whether you’re a casual player or a hardcore fan who knows Ryu’s move list off by heart, 2023 has had yoꦫu covered.

Coming off the back of such a landmark year for the genre, you might think that ’s director, Katsuhiro Harada, and prod🌌ucer, Michael Murray, would be feeling anxious to live up to expectations while taking on ♔the responsibility of kicking off what will hopefully be another big year. That isn’t the case.

“I don’t really feel a lot of pressure,” Harada says, as translated by Murray. ꦬ“Back in the ‘90s, there were a lot of fighting games. For us, it didn’t really matter as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are both 2D⛦ games. For 3D fighting games, Tekken is the only one that’s relevant still. It’s actually kind of lonely, it’s almost like we’d hope to have a rival to help us make the genre more exciting.”

Even though Harada is feeling lonely in a world where Tekken has outlived the likes of and Virtua Fighter, Murray says that, as a fighting game fan himself, he’s excited about all of the new titles coming out. He notes that the release schedule has worked out well, offering a big new release in the genre every few months. Murray hopes that t♌he consistent release of fightin♏g games will push fans towards Tekken 8 and newcomers like Project L.

Outside of Tekken 8’s emphasis on speedy and aggressive gameplay, and a refined focus on having ultra-realistic graphics, perhaps the most surprising thing about Tekken 8 isn’t what it’s adding, but what it’s ta🌃king away - Heihachi Mishima. Heihachi has been the face of Tekken ever since the series began in 1994 and hasn’t missed a single game until now.

Although we all brutally witnessed Heihachi meet his doom at the end 🌞of Tekken 7, many fans expected Harada and the team to pull a fast one and find a way to bring him back for the sequel. That&rs♎quo;s not the case, as he’s nowhere to be seen in the final character roster and is really, honest to god dead, a rarity for Tekken.

When I talk about this to Harada and Murray, they laugh, pointing out that Heihachi has indeed appeared to die in the past while making an expected comeback shortly after🌱. Harada says that the story of Tekken is decided and planned out much further in advance than fans might think, so the team has known for some time that Heihachi was going to die and not appear in the eighth instalment.

“It’s also decided that the story for Tekken 8 is going to be exc﷽iting and fun without Heihachi,” Murray said. “That said, Harada was a bit surprised about how Heihachi was going to die. He knew he was going to die but the way the designers decided to portray it leav🎐es no room for misinterpretation. He’s pretty dead. Harada was kind of surprised that there was no escaping that.”

Tekken 8 might be taking away the head Mishima, but it is at least bringing back a more heroic family member - Jun Kazama. The mother of Jin has long been thought dead, not being seen in a mainline Tekken꧙ game for 27 years, but is f🌊inally being brought back in a big way for Tekken 8, seemingly playing an integral role in the story mode.

One reason why Jun’s return is such a big deal is that we last saw what many assumed to be her decapitated head held by one of T🎃ekken’s biggest baddies, Ogre. 🐻However, Harada believed that should never have been taken as a sign of her dying.

“We never real🍬ly said that she was killed, but a lot of people thought she died,” Harada says. “One of the movies in Tekken 3 shows Ogre with someone’s head but it’s clearly not one particular character, it’s just designed to show him as a scary character. She’s just been absent for such a long time, but it was really exciting to bring her back, as she’s one of the fan favourites.”

It’s not just returning characters that are getting a lot of love in Tekken 8, as almost the whole roster has been redesigned for the eighth entry. Some veterans have seen minor cha🥃nges, like Marshall Law being made even beefier than before, while others have been dramatically altered. One of the most heartbreaking design changes has gone to Kuma, who is seen wearing Heihachi’s gi in honour of his fallen master.

The internet was devastated to see everyone’s favourite bear in mourning, but the truth behind it is more intriguing than sad. Murray reveals that the decision to give Kuma clothes was made to revitalise him while still keeping his essence. He’s also not actually wearing Heihachi&rsꦑquo;s outfit.

“F𝓀ans thought that Kuma took Heihachi’s uniform and that he’s wearing it to avenge his master”, Harada says. “But if you think logically there’s no way that Kuma’s going to be able to wear Heihachi’s uniform because the sizes are totally different. So, the real q🦋uestion is who made his uniform?”

Kuma apparently having his own tailor who can replicate Heihachi’s outfit for him is just one example of Tekken’s funnier side and a good sign that the series isn’t trying to be too seri🌃ous, even with the more realistic graphics. That being said, if Tekken 7’s DLC fighters are anything to go by, the series can get a whole lot weirder.

Although Murray and Harada say that it’s too soon to think about potential guest fighters for Tekken 8, I couldn’t miss the chance to ask them about one of the strangest 💞moments in the whole series - Negan from The Walking Dead joining Tekken 7. That game already had a few unexpected picks for fighters like Noctis from Final Fantasy 15 and Geese Howard f🌜rom Fatal Fury, but no one expected the bat-wielding baddy to join the roster.

“We were all fans of The Walking Dead right around the time that Negan came into the show and everyone hated him,” Murray tells me. “We were looking for another villain after having Akuma and🍸 Geese, so we thought who’s next? Who’s the next villain we can do? We were like, wow, this guy is the worst”.

After settling on Negan as one of the final DLC characters for the game’s second seasonꦺ, Murray and Harada were able to get into contact with AMC and then pitch the idea of puttin🎉g him into a fighting game, something that Murray says AMC were fully on board with from the start.

Harada revealed recently that Tekken 7 🦋almost included Donald Trump as a playable fighter, s༺o prepare for Tekken 8 to get mighty weird with its DLC.

No matter how much I ask them, Murray and Har🦂ada won’t give up too many details on who they have in mind for Tekken 8’s post-launch content. But it seems that, just like with Negan, we can probably expect something surprising to c🅘ome from whatever the team is into at the time.

“♚The three of us, we’re usually watching some kind of movie or TV and we’re like, ‘Oh this is awesome’, but right now we’re so busy creating Tekken 8 that we don’t have any time to consume the proper media to do that. Hopefully, when things settle down we can find a cool character”.