In the middle of the Tekken World Tour 2022 Finals, Katsuhiro Harada and Michael Murray approached the stage. As promised, they had a surprise announcement ready to reveal for Tekken fans.
After a 35-minute trailer that explained many of Tekken 8’s mechanics, another trailer appeared that revealed Nina Williams. Rather than sporting a wedding dress, she has a more casual look this time.
One of the most noticeable changes about Nina in Tekken 8 is that she’s now rocking dual pistols as part of her moveset. However, it should be pointed out that Nina isn’t just using these pistols to simply zone out her opponents if the trailer is anything to go by.
Instead, Nina appears to utilize pistol shooting as either a combo ender or combo extender. It’s never demonstrated if whether or not these pistols can hit opponents from full screen, but they do appear to have a decent amount of range to them.
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During the 35 minute trailer that aired before the Nina trailer, Tekken 8’s “Heat” system was explained in great detail. This status can be entered by either using a Heat Burst or Heat Engager. A Heat Burst is easier to activate, but a Heat Engager is a little more rewarding.
Using a Heat Burst against an opponent will leave your character at an advantage on hit or block. Alternatively, a Heat Burst can be activated without the attack portion.
Characters on average have about five different Heat Engagers. A Heat Engager will only cause a character to enter their Heat status upon hit, but they get access to two bars of “8 energy” whereas the Heat Burst only unlocks one.
“8 energy” can be spent on a Heat Dash or a Heat Smash. A Heat Dash allows a character to cancel an attack into a dash. This only spends one “8 energy” to do. Using a Heat Smash will spend all available “8 energy.”
