February really was the month of extreme Tekken 8 hype. First, we had the Tekken World Tour Finals giving us a better look at the Heat system and revealing that Nina Williams would be returning to the roster. Last week saw Kazuya Mishima receive a character trailer, showing off flashy particle effects and muscles galore. This week it’s the turn of his son, Jin Kazama, to receive a bombastic trailer and hints of a retooled moveset.
Similar to Kazuya’s trailer, the two are fighting on a brand-new stage that looks a whole lot like a Tekkenfied Times Square in New York. He’s using some moves we haven’t seen before, plus it looks like he’s cribbed a few from Devil Jin. It’s making it seem unlikely that the latter is returning as a playable character and instead, it may be that the two have merged and Jin can (somewhat) keep his devilish side under control.
It seems like Tekken 8 is doing away with some of its darker realism in favour of flashy anime showmanship, something I’m personally 100% here for. There are an awful lot of particle effects, something not everyone has been enjoying. It’s still early days though, and we’re currently three character trailers down with a lot more to hopefully see. If Bandai Namco keeps up the pace I half-expect there to be a new trailer each week in the runup to EVO Japan at the end of March. There are currently six other characters we know are coming who are yet to receive trailers—Jack-8, King, Lars Alexandersson, Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix, and Jun Kazama.
That’s six characters and four weeks remaining until EVO Japan. It seems likely that we’ll be getting to see characters we already know are in the game, and then a big character reveal to come during the tournament. I imagine the Jun trailer won’t come for a while yet, considering her lengthy absence from the series. Personally, I’d love to see a Lars trailer next, especially since so much of his Tekken 8 airtime so far has been him getting beaten up by other characters.