Tekken 8’s story mode — The Dark Awakens — is probably one of the better narratives featured in a fighting game. It was among the things that we praised in our Tekken 8 review.
As it turns out, there’s actually an alternate ending that can be achieved by fulfilling certain requirements. According to Katsuhiro Harada of Bandai Namco, most players have not seen this ending.
In the final battle, Jin faces off against Kazuya for six whole rounds. It would seem that both fighters have now lost access to the powers granted to them via the Devil Gene.
The player is tasked with defeating Kazuya as Jin. Doing so will ensure that the player sees the normal ending.
However, if Jin loses to Kazuya in the sixth and final round, after Kazuya begins glowing red due to the Rage mechanic, the alternate ending will play out instead.
The scene that is seen appears to be a reference to Kazuya’s ending from the original Tekken back in 1994. Just like what he did to Heihachi during that cutscene, Kazuya carries Jin to a cliff before dropping him.
Following this, a smile can be seen on Kazuya’s face. Of course, it’s not quite the same meme-worthy smile that we saw in Tekken when Kazuya dropped Heihachi off a cliff for the sake of revenge.
Just like the original ending of Tekken 8, it’s noted that Kazuya is no longer able to use his devil form due to the battle with Jin. At the end of it all, Kazuya is depicted sitting at back in his chair in which he notes that he still intends to go forward with taking control of the world even without his powers.
Apparently, Katsuhiro Harada had outlined this scenario back to Bandai Namco Masaya Nakamura founder back in the 1990s. Harada estimated that it would probably take him three more games within 10 years for this to become reality.
Evidently, it took quite a bit longer than that as it took until 2024 for this to happen. Needless to say, we’ve seemingly come full circle with Kazuya’s ending from the original Tekken.
Regardless, we should probably expect that Tekken 9 (or maybe a future story expansion for Tekken 8) will pick up after the original ending for Tekken 8 which means that this alternate ending is not canon.
Statistically, apparently most players have not reached the other fateful ending of #TEKKEN8 Story mode: The Dark Awakening.
(I don’t have a concept of which is Good and which is Bad, but these are for the players to interpret for themselves).It (other ending) was this scenario…
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) January 31, 2024