The sudden reveal that Akuma was joining Tekken 7 back in 2015 felt like a surprise that came out of nowhere. It remains as our first and only glimpse at what Tekken X Street Fighter might be like.
Akuma wasn’t the only Capcom guest character that was ever considered for Tekken 7. According to a post made by Katsuhiro Harada back in 2020, Morrigan Aensland from the Darkstalkers series came very close to also guest starring in the 3D fighting game.
“To be honest, back in 2017 she was a prime candidate for us to want to bring in as a guest,” said Harada in a response to fan asking about Morrigan in Tekken 7.
The developers apparently felt confident about properly referencing the character in terms of her animations and model. Unfortunately, there was a perceived difficulty about how accurately they’d be able to represent the gameplay of the Darkstalkers series in a 3D fighting game like Tekken.
実のところ2017年のゲスト参戦では最有力で、実際カプコンの小野さんに正式打診する一歩手前でした。
モデリングとかアニメーション再現&味付けには自信はあったのですが、戦術の再現性検証に時間がかかりそうだったので当時は諦めましたね。https://t.co/cCWk4pmiEY— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) January 15, 2020
“And we were extremely close to contacting Ono over at Capcom for official permission,” continued Harada. “We had full confidence in being able to do her modeling and animations and having it do justice to the source material, but as for her gameplay it felt like making it feel the way it should for her would take a lot of time so we ended up abandoning it.”
Rumors have recently begun to surface that Morrigan was considered, but Akuma was chosen instead as the Capcom guest character. This much is even referenced on Akuma’s Tekken wiki page with a linkback to the aforementioned post from Harada.
However, this timeline doesn’t actually make sense based on Harada’s words. Within Harada’s post from 2020, he mentions specifically that Morrigan was a “prime candidate” as a guest back in 2017.
“To be honest, back in 2017 [Morrigan Aensland] was a prime candidate for us to want to bring in as a guest.” — Katsuhiro Harada
By 2017, Akuma was already playable in Tekken 7. This means that Morrigan was being considered as a Capcom guest character in addition to Akuma, not instead of him.
Had Bandai Namco gone forward with adding Morrigan as a character in Tekken, it would’ve been in place of SNK’s Geese Howard, Square Enix’s Noctis Lucis Caelum, or AMC’s Negan Smith.
Just recently, Final Fantasy 16’s Clive Rosfield was added as a guest character to Tekken 8. It would seem that guest characters are once again on the table for Tekken.
With this in mind, could we see a scenario in which Morrigan is finally realized as a guest character, but for Tekken 8? We’ll just have to see what gets announced for Season 2 and beyond.
A special thanks goes out to Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor for the translations used in this article.
Source: Event Hubs
