We’ve seen fan drum up characters usage stats for Tekken 8 plenty of times since its launch back in January, but never have we gotten official popularity rankings from Bandai Namco. That is, until Director Katshuhiro Harada shared this information on the latest episode of Harada’s Bar.
Before he offers the list, Harada tells us that this data is collected not only from online matches, but also from offline. This means we’re getting a more vivid picture than ever before when it comes to global Tekken 8 character usage.
As it turns out, the most popular character in all of Tekken 8 is the brand new Reina. Harada points out that it is especially atypical for a new character to garner this much public favor this quickly, though it seems Reina has tapped in to the same vein as the somewhat similarly-themed Juri from Street Fighter, who also saw massive overnight success.
In contrast, Lidia Sobieska, a relatively new character introduced in late stage Tekken 7 and brought back into Tekken 8 as DLC, ranks all the way down in the bottom five. Azucena, another femme fatale introduced in Tekken 8, comes in just above the middle of the pack at 14th.
We would be remiss if we didn’t point out that these findings do not include the very recently added Heihachi Mishima, Reina’s father. Heihachi is easily one of the franchise’s most popular characters and has been around and central to the main narrative since the very beginning, so he very well could dethrone his daughter once he’s had ample time in the wild.
1. Reina
2. King
3. Jin
4. Kazuya
5. Dragunov
6. Hworang
7. Bryan
8. Steve
9. Yoshimitsu
10. Law
11. Lili
12. Victor
13. Paul
14. Azucena
15. Jun
16. Devil Jin
17. Asuka
18. Lee
19. Lars
20. Ren
21. Nina
22. Xiaoyu
23. Alisa
24. Leo
25. Jack
26. Eddy
27. Leroy
28. Raven
29. Claudio
30. Kuma
31. Lidia
32. Shaheen
33. Zafina
34. Panda
You can see Harada present the list himself as he shares additional details, such as how things have generally changed and which characters have moved over time, in the full video below.
The character usage segment begins at the 19:25 mark, but Harada talks about plenty of other topics ranging from Tekken 8’s sales performance thus far to new merch and more.
Were you surprised by any of these results? Do you think Heihachi will shoot to the top of the stack? Share your thoughts in the comments section with us below.