Bandai Namco may have revealed Tekken 8 in the most simple, yet mysterious way as EVO 2022 wrapped up.
Bandai Namco has been known for their work in creating and publishing some of the best fighting games to market and for tournaments like Evolution Championship Series (EVO). This past weekend was EVO 2022 and Tekken 8 may have been revealed in the most bizarre and weirdly nostalgic way. While the teaser did not necessarily reveal anything gameplay-related or story-based, it was enough to get every fan riled up.
The EVO 2022 fighting game tournament livestream hosted many talented fighting game players from across the world—all playing on the Las Vegas EVO stage. The event featured big fighting game titles such as Guilty Gear Strive, Street Fighter 5, Skullgirls, including the recently released Warner Bros. game, MultiVersus.
One of the biggest fighting games at EVO 2022 was Tekken 7, which was released back in 2017. It was featured as the ninth game in the Tekken series and was meant to serve as the finale for the Mishima Zaibatsu storyline that has carried the Tekken games since its original inception. The long-standing director and producer of the Tekken games, Katsuhiro Harada noted how there would be more games past Tekken 7, but the teaser for a potential sequel revealed at EVO 2022 was very secretive.
The footage from the EVO 2022 livestream was shown to be a brief clip of Kazuya Mishima’s ending from the original Tekken game. It displayed the classic anti-hero ‘yeeting’ his beaten father, Heihachi Mishima over a cliff for the first time in game history, but not the last. While the teaser featured the momentous scene in its early-90s CGI, it quickly evolved into Kazuya turning to the camera and smiling.
The scene changes into a more realistically-rendered version of him grinning at the audience with one eye glowing and the words “Get Ready” appeared on the screen. Immediately, Harada took to the stage in front of a frenzied crowd and an even more hyped-up scene from the commentators’ desk. Twitter user, TekkenGamer posted the iconic moment for those who missed it at EVO 2022.
While nothing of worthy note was presented to imply a Tekken 8 game was coming, many could only assume the best outcome of that random tease. However, this most likely was the best way to say that Tekken 8 is currently under development or could be in the works after a five-year gap of a new Tekken title.
Still, the potential Tekken 8 teaser was enough to rumble and crumble the audience up to the commentators staff when Kazuya Mishima’s face glowed on-screen. In the end, Harada did not confirm or deny anything about a Tekken 8 game, but fans may be assured that something could be cooking up for another Tekken game.
An important note mentioned by GamesRadar was that Tekken 8 was part of the Nvidia leak back in September 2021. Thousands of game titles from Nvidia’s database were supposedly leaked and were “claimed to be highly speculative.” However, some of these titles were recently confirmed, from the Resident Evil 4 remake, Dragon’s Dogma 2 to Kingdom Hearts 4 and more.
