Tekken 8 just crowned its first world champion at the Tekken World Tour 2024 Finals this past weekend, but there wasn’t a big DLC character reveal at the event like usual.
Instead, Bandai Namco is opting to announce the last fighter of Tekken 8’s first season at The Game Awards 2024 this week, and signs are pointing to it being a guest character.
Now interestingly, the developers did seemingly tease Anna Williams for Season 2, so we at least know it probably won’t be her turn in the spotlight just yet.
With Tekken 8 itself up for Best Fighting Game and Best Multiplayer Game at the awards ceremony, it would make sense for Bamco to keep something back that’s extra special for the event to hopefully please active players while also appealing to those who don’t own the fighter yet.
Hardcore fans may be wishing for characters like Julia, Bruce, Christie or Marduk to return, however, that won’t really mean much to the general audience watching at home.
We’re expecting Bamco to bring some sort of bombast to the big stage that’ll get people excited, and the best way to do that is with the game’s first guest character.
Tekken 7 already opened that door with the likes of Street Fighter’s Akuma, Fatal Fury’s Geese Howard, Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis and The Walking Dead’s Negan.
There’s certainly a few very strong candidates to pick from, especially among the other Game Awards nominees.
And while we think a Warhammer Space Marine could be cool or funny, they aren’t at the top of our list.
So let’s dive into the best candidates starting with the one who is probably the most obvious pick of all.
Fans have been clamoring for Tifa’s inclusion in the fighting game series long before Tekken 8 was even announced or released.
Her hand to hand martial arts fits the 3D fighter almost perfectly on paper and certainly much more so than Noctis did in Tekken 7.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth itself is going to have a heavy presence at The Game Awards considering Square Enix’s action RPG is tied for the most total nominations at 7 alongside Astro Bot — so there’s already going to be a lot of eyes on that game in particular.
This also wouldn’t even be the first time a FF7 character got announced as a guest fighter at The Game Awards considering Super Smash Bros. Ultimate already set that precedent with Sephiroth in 2020.
Even Katsuhiro Harada himself has commented on Tifa’s popularity and high amount of requests they receive for her with the longtime director responding “we all know she’s attractive” to a fan’s question back in January.
At that time, he also claimed they did not decide anything when it came to guest characters yet, but that was almost a year ago now (and that doesn’t mean he was telling the truth).
Things are looking almost perfect for Tifa’s arrival across from Jin and Reina, but we’re not putting all of our eggs in that basket yet.
Just because something fits and would make sense doesn’t mean it’ll actually happen, but a lot of people seem to be hoping it finally does.
She would also get the biggest pop off out of anyone at this point.
The characters probably closest to rivaling Tifa in terms of requests come from Sega’s ever-popular Like A Dragon / Yakuza series, and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is another title receiving a bunch of accolades at The Game Awards this year.
Although Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima were the most likely to show up before as the original faces of the franchise, Ichiban Kasuga has taken over that protagonist role these past two mainline entries — so there’s a very good chance he’d be the pick for Tekken now to show off his street brawling and made up RPG powers.
Bandai Namco and Sega do appear to have a good working relationship that we’ll get into more shortly, but there may also be some more hurdles preventing Ichiban or Kiryu from answering the call.
Like A Dragon Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama was previously asked this year directly about crossing over into fighting games, but he indicated he believes it’s best to go outside of the medium like the Yakuza TV series rather than going to another video game.
The original series creator Toshiro Nagoshi was also apprehensive about including Kiryu in fighting games years ago because that means he’d have to hit women, but he doesn’t really have a say anymore since hasn’t been at the company since 2021.
So we’ll be seeing soon if that’s still the case or not.
Virtua Fighter and Tekken have a shared history between their rivalry as the first major 3D fighters and original Sega members joining Namco back in the day though Tekken was basically the last one left standing up until recently.
We’ve seen the likes of Akira Yuki, Pai Chan, Sarah and Jacky Bryant join Dead or Alive 5 before, so we know Sega is / was open to the idea of lending their fighters out as guest characters.
With Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, they also included a Tekken costume DLC bundle, meaning there’s already been some overlap.
Sega just recently announced Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. due out this Winter, so getting one of their characters into Tekken 8 would be a good way for them to promote the upcoming release to a slightly different audience.
Harada did say as well that “we can talk” about a Virtua Fighter crossover if a new one is revealed. It may not be 6 like he was hoping for, but it certainly is something.
The question then becomes, however, who do they pick?
Akira, Pai Chan, Jacky and Sarah would be the safe choices, but the Tekken team doesn’t go for that every time.
So perhaps we could end up seeing the likes of Jean, Goh, Vanessa, or Wolf up for contention.
Bandai Namco could always fall back on a more typical strategy to pull in another iconic fighting game character into their roster to serve as Tekken 8’s first guest like we previously saw with Akuma and Geese Howard in the last game.
Street Fighter may be the most obvious pick to give fans forever waiting for that Tekken x Street Fighter project to make it out of development purgatory after more than a decade, but it doesn’t have to be.
SNK of course is very open to lending out their characters with Terry Bogard currently on his quest for world domination though maybe we could see someone else like Krauser to thematically follow up on Geese — even if it wouldn’t bring quite the same pop.
A Mortal Kombat crossover would be huge, but Harada previously discussed while getting Scorpion or the like would be wonderful, he doesn’t think it could happen (unless he’s been pulling our legs these past few months).
Or maybe they’ll just pull in someone from Dead or Alive just to make Tomonobu Itagaki mad.
Negan was arguably the most surprising and out there fighting game guest character of all time, and there’s no reason why the Tekken team wouldn’t try and pull off something similar again.
That of course makes it pretty much impossible to predict who it could be, but the choices would likely come down to what Harada and the development team have been enjoying these past few years in terms of TV shows, movies and other games.
And then the owners of said properties would have to be down to have their character punched, mauled, slashed, shot and blown up to let them in the door.
So let’s just put it out there now. Someone owes me $1,000 if Alan Wake comes to Tekken or $100 for a Baldur’s Gate character (but they’d probably go with a more off the wall pick than that).
There has been some rumblings and speculation lately about a potential Bleach representative in Tekken 8 too since Harada said earlier this year it’s his favorite manga.
Of course it’s my favorite Manga too. https://t.co/bgJ0rA2N36
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 24, 2024
Bandai Namco is also publishing the new Bleach Rebirth of Souls game next year too, which could be good cross promotion, but it’s still a bit of a stretch.
It’s hard to imagine Ichigo Kurosaki fitting in well with his swordplay even after including Noctis before, though, perhaps someone focused on hand-to-hand combat could mesh better like the best girl, Yoruichi Shihoin.
No matter who it ends up being, video game fans around the world will be seeing the last character of Tekken 8’s first year in just a few short days, so they better bring the hype.
The Game Awards 2024 is set to take place this Thursday, December 12 starting at 4:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 ET for the pre-show with the actual award ceremony going live probably around 30 minutes or so later where dozens of reveals will take place.
So let us know in the comments who you think is coming or want to join Tekken 8 the most.