Tekken 8 DLC 3 Preview — Hail to the King

While Tekken has a lot of great characters, Heihachi takes the crown in my book. No one embodies this series better than him. He is over the top, he is powerful, he is adaptable, he is Tekken. Despite his climactic, seemingly very real death in Tekken 7, it would never have surprised me to learn that he’d be back. When Bandai Namco announced Heihachi’s return at EVO 2024, I could only laugh in the same larger than life cackle that Heihachi is known for.

Recently, I had the chance to reconnect with my favorite cliff-tossing enthusiast. I spent some time trying out Heihachi’s new play style in Tekken 8, played through the upcoming story mode where he plays a major role, and I even got the chance to speak with Michael Murray and Kohei Ikeda from the Tekken team about it all.

I may have known that Heiachi would return, but apparently the developers did not. Mr. Murray and Mr. Ikeda explained that they truly intended for Tekken 7 to be Heihachi’s end; they put their all into making his death a definitive one. Apparently, the head of the Tekken Zaibatsu, Katsuhiro Harada, had originally told them to give Heihachi a convincing end. When he actually saw the death, however, he told the staff that he didn’t actually want Heihachi to die. Mr. Harada urged the team to bring Heihachi back to life for Tekken 8, so here he is. While I got the sense that Mr. Murray was perhaps playing up the details of this little anecdote, it’s definitely more fun to believe that’s exactly what happened.

After witnessing his strength firsthand, it’s hard not to believe in Heihachi, too. I won’t claim to be a lifelong Heihachi main, but when I think about his game plan, I think of overwhelming pressure. Heihachi specializes in powerful blows that he can use to relentlessly bully his opponents. That remains the case in Tekken 8, where even after setting the AI to its highest difficulty (in hopes that it might teach me a thing or two about playing Heihachi) I easily stuffed out everything it attempted to do for easy victories.

Unfortunately, my time with the game was limited to fighting AI opponents, so I couldn’t truly test Heihachi’s limits. However, his hits still made a strong impression. I may not be a Heihachi master, but I have spent a lot of time with Reina. Reina inherits some of Heihachi’s techniques, but his Tekken 8 debut makes it clear that they are very different characters. Reina fights using fast and tricky strikes to keep the opponent guessing, while Heihachi keeps things simple and slow. I found Reina surprisingly difficult to learn; in comparison, I felt like I could easily grasp Heihachi’s gameplan during my time with him.

Tekken 8 excels in finding new ways to heat up fights, and Heihachi is no exception. Heihachi can now tap into a new “Warrior mode,” which the developers described as their attempt to build the narrative into gameplay. In his efforts to overcome the previous tragedy of his defeat, Heihachi finds a new source of strength. Entering Warrior Mode powers Heihachi up and grants him benefits like making moves that previously left him open to counter attacks punishable.

Even without Warrior Mode, Heihachi felt strong; upon activating it, he became downright ridiculous. Tekken 8 pushes the characters and its combat system to powerful extremes. Between the additions of Heat, Rage, and numerous additions to its rosters’ arsenals, Tekken continues to grow more intense. I had to ask the team: particularly with Heihachi, did they ever worry that they were pushing things too far?

As expected of the masterminds behind Tekken 8, the answer was, to paraphrase, “not really.” Aside from Mr. Murray lightly teasing Mr. Ikeda about their handling of Dragunov, the developers expressed no regrets about their efforts to intensify Tekken’s battles. They want every character to be powerful in their own way and it sounds to me like they plan on sticking to their guns as much as possible. That said, Mr. Ikeda also noted that they were careful to make sure that despite his upgrades, Heihachi has weaknesses like side steps.

For those looking for some insight into Heihachi’s mental strengths and weaknesses, a new DLC story mode will be arriving with the character. I played through the entire thing, and it’s a natural extension of the story mode that launched with Tekken 8. This time around, the focus shifts to the DLC roster, with the opening chapters of the game focusing on Eddy Gordo and Lidia, while Heihachi takes over the latter half.

The new story feels noticeably more like a side chapter for most of its run, but it’s a fun time. I enjoyed my time with Eddy in particular, as he gets some nice moments with Jin. The Heihachi half is the real highlight, but in the interest of keeping some surprise for you, I’ll just say it’s exactly the kind of wild ride I’ve come to expect from Tekken’s ongoing narrative.

I will add that as a Reina fan, I was slightly worried that Heihachi’s swift return might lessen her future impact. The development team assured me that Reina was not going to be sidelined. They actually went as far as to say that they had the idea of a female Mishima character for some time and the outpouring from fans regarding Reina proved that they were right about her appeal. Even outside of the developers’ comments, both the story mode and a versus battle interaction I observed between Heihachi and Reina confirmed to me that she will be plenty important to Tekken’s world going forward.

Beyond that, DLC 3 will also be adding in some smaller but appreciated features. The new stage adds a very pleasant Japanese atmosphere to fights with some cool seasonal changes. Collaboration DLC featuring the Nike and Little Monster brands will give players an incentive to log in to Tekken 8 and collect some new fashion items. My favorite addition: you can now set the main menu to feature any character in the game. Now Reina can welcome you whenever you boot up the game! Or Heihachi, I guess.

Tekken 8 leaves a strong impression on its own, and my time with everything coming to the game with its third DLC update reignited my passion to get back into the game. The DLC launches for early access players on Oct. 1 at 8:00 JST / Sept. 30 at 4:00PM PDT / 7:00PM ES, and everyone else on Oct. 4 at 8:00 JST / Oct. 3 at 4:00PM PDT / 7:00PM EST, so there’s not much time left to get ready for the next battle.

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