THE Tekken series debuted in 1994, and from the beginning Katsuhiro Harada worked on the game as a consultant.
By Tekken 3 he had moved up to co-director, and by Tekken 6 he was the face of the series.
I was lucky enough to be able to talk to Harada-san about his work on Tekken while he was visiting London.
Harada-san tells me: “I’ve been working on the game for 30 years, so normally it doesn’t hit me that it’s affecting so many people.
“But occasionally I’ll have someone from the community come up and say they’ve had such intense good memories because of something that happened to them because of Tekken.
“Or that they made friends in the community by playing. In those moments it’s like, wow, I have an influence on people.”
Tekken is no longer a game played by teenage friends in the living room on a Friday night — it’s a global sensation, and dedicated players travel the globe following the Tekken World Tour to prove their skills.
Tekken World Tour tournaments take place in the UK, USA, Australia, Thailand, Bolivia, Brazil, and more countries and regions across the world, all leading towards a final event in Japan.
Tekken 8 is the latest game in the series, and the growth of the fanbase over the last 30 years requires more hands than just Harada-san’s in order to keep things running smoothly.
Harada-san says: “The Tekken World Tour has grown quite big and complex.
“Because myself and Michael [Murray, Tekken’s game designer] have been to various tournaments around the world and met the [tournament organisers]. We have a relationship with them already.
“Hopefully we can continue that [relationship] because the game itself is an extension of that relationship with the community.”
Tekken is known as the premier game series for the 3D fighting game genre, and it’s managed to hold that relevance all these years to excellent gameplay and smart character crossovers.
Tekken 7 invited a wealth of new players to the game thanks to additions to the roster including Street Fighter’s Akuma, Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis, and The Walking Dead’s Negan.
Crossovers like those catch the attention of all sides of the entertainment sphere, and helped make Tekken 7 the best-selling Tekken game of all time.
Yes, that’s even if you include the classic PS1 games that seemingly everybody owned.
Harada-san explains: “When we’re building out the roster, many people are fans of the original Tekken characters, and so they ask for us to increase those.
“On the other hand, guest characters are good for bringing in people who aren’t necessarily Tekken fans, and broadening the audience.
“Although we’re not currently thinking of them at the moment, because people are still asking for Tekken characters, at some point, there might be a time we decide to do something like that.
“The licenser has to want to do so, and the timing has to match up as well, so it’s really hard to say.”
Tekken 8 hasn’t even been available for a full year yet, but the game’s popular roster and mechanical twists have made it one of the best fighting games to play in 2024.
And competitive players agree, as Tekken 8 was the second most popular game of the EVO Championship 2024, more than doubling the entrants of the third-place game, and only being beaten by the dominant Street Fighter 6.
Whether you’re an avid esports fan, competitive gamer, or living room button basher, there are few games better to play than Tekken 8.
If you want to read more about the game, check out our Tekken 8 review.
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