Just last night, Reina was revealed as the final character for Tekken 8’s base roster at the end of the Evo Tekken 8 Showcase. Based on her fighting style, it appears that she has some unknown connection to the Mishima bloodline.
Could she be another offspring of Heihachi’s? Though she’s different in many ways, it feels like Reina is effectively the replacement for Heihachi in Tekken 8.
Speaking of Heihachi, Reina’s reveal as the final character in Tekken 8 confirms that Heihachi will not be present in this game. Leading up to Reina’s reveal, Harada had something to say about Heihachi.
“Heihachi Mishima is completely dead,” exclaimed Harada at the Evo Tekken 8 Showcase. This seems to perfectly sum up why the character isn’t playable in Tekken 8.
Needless to say, the emphasis that Harada places on “completely” is an important point here considering the history of the Mishima storyline within the Tekken series. Needless to say, we shouldn’t expect a reveal that Heihachi somehow survived his encounter with Kazuya Mishima at the conclusion of Tekken 7’s main story.
Some degree of skepticism is to be expected considering that the character was believed dead after the events of Tekken 1 where Kazuya threw him off a cliff, and during the events of Tekken 5 where he was caught in an explosion.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Harada has stated that Heihachi was killed at the end of Tekken 7. Michael Murray also added that it was intended to make the fighter’s death be convincing this time.
“He looked pretty dead to me,” said Harada back in late March. “Heihachi had failed to actually convert the devil gene, and he doesn’t have it so there’s no way he can revive like Kazuya or Jin can.”
“Heihachi has been dead so many times, you have to make sure it’s convincing this time’, and we were like, ‘you told us to make sure he’s dead, right?!'” added Murray.
It’s also worth noting that Harada had been hinting for years that Jun Kazama was still alive despite it being implied that Ogre had killed her before the events of Tekken 3. That turned out to be true with Jun’s return in Tekken 8, so that probably means that Harada is being truthful when he says that Heihachi is now “completely dead.”
We should also mention that this clearly isn’t just a case of Heihachi lying low considering Kuma’s Tekken 8 biography. Kuma is in denial, but the writing is on the wall when it comes to Heihachi’s fate.
It truly is the end of an era, but sometimes that just how these sort of stories unfold. We’ll have to see how things play out from here between Kazuya and Jin, as well with Jun and Reina now joining the mix.