Tekken 8 is finally getting Heihachi in August 2024

Tekken 8 is finally getting Heihachi Mishima, as he’ll be added to the roster as the third DLC character in fall 2024.

The big news was announced at EVO 2024 and it’s a welcome announcement, as fans have been waiting for the King of the Iron Fist since he wasn’t part of the roster at launch. It made sense at the time since he met his end during Tekken 7’s story, but he’s such a mainstay that fans wanted him back in some form.

Not all battles end on a cliffhanger.
The story of #TEKKEN8 is far from over 👊 photo.twitter.com/nQM48icoHc

— TEKKEN (@TEKKEN) July 21, 2024

We had the chance to talk to Tekken’s Katsuhiro Harada and Kohei Ikeda about Heihachi’s return. They shared their thought process on bringing his death to life.

“Tekken 7 really focused on the storyline between Heihachi and his son, Kazuya, and so we really wanted to show that kind of final conclusion, and he seemed to die at that point,” Harada said. “But then, after that happened, Tekken 8 came out, and we put a lot of effort into the story and the fans seemed to really engage with that. And while that was happening, we felt like the players missed him too. We missed him too, of course. So it was decided later on that’s what we would do.”

Despite this, preparations were being made in the background for Heihachi’s return.

“We kind of did some preparations for Heihachi,” Ikeda said. “Reina was one because of the connection she has with Heihachi. And then if you look closely at the 30th anniversary logo, it’s made up of devil wings. There’s two different styles, but if you step back and look, it actually looks like the silhouette of Heihachi’s face. Right? So we were doing some preparations in the background.”

While they weren’t ready to share many more details about Heihachi, there were a few small details to report.

“As you can imagine, it’s still too early to tell you a lot of details about his character, but to give some hints, he’s had a really powerful playstyle throughout the series, so we tried to emulate that in Tekken 8,” Ikeda said. “So the focus is on that. But also, if you saw the story hints in the footage about the monks and what he has to do with them, maybe that will inform some of his movesets as well.”

Heihachi is the third DLC character for Tekken 8, following Eddy Gordo and Lidia Sobieska. While his arrival is exciting, there’s plenty more for fans to look forward to, including the first-ever story DLC in the Tekken franchise. This new chapter of “The Dark Awakens” will continue the battle between the Kazama and Mishima families, and will be available as a free update for all players in the future.

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Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and further TikTok activity.