The granddaddy of Tekken couldn't stay away for too long
"Heihachi Mishima… is dead." The line Tekken fans have now heard in-game twice, along with director Katsuhiro Harada spending the last few months insisting that The King of Iron Fist was well and truly gone.
I damn-near believed him, too. After all, the end of Tekken 7's story sees Heihachi defeated at the hands of his son, Kazuya Mishima, before being tossed into a volcano in what can only be described as a real "tit for tat" moment. Tekken 8 ends up loosely dancing around his missing status and, bar Raven repeating his infamous Tekken 5 line, it's never explicitly confirmed if he really had Dor'd his last Ya.
That is, until Tekken 8's finals happened at Evo Las Vegas this weekend. Footage of Raven spreading misinformation—seriously, it's happened twice now, how has this guy not been fired yet?—is interspersed with Harada's own devious claims of Heihachi's demise before the man emerges from what appears to be the same volcano we left him in.
It's an incredibly hype trailer, and there's tons of lore and theorycrafting to pick apart here. For starters, he's looking notably younger in the trailer than he has in the last couple of games. His face also looks slightly unlike him, leading to theories that while Heihachi's body is long lost to magma, his soul has been implanted in somebody else. It's definitely plausible, especially since the trailer ends with the line "The King of Iron Fist Resurrection". We also see a fair amount of the Tekken Monks, a clan who seem to be pretty well-versed in the Mishima fighting style.
They no doubt have a role in how and why Heihachi is back, and hopefully we'll get the answers with the accompanying story expansion. Considering Tekken 8 looked to be wrapping up the original Mishima saga and positing Heihachi's daughter Reina as the new big bad devil, I'm interested in seeing how they're gonna start weaving this narrative together. Admittedly, part of me wishes they'd left Heihachi dead, but I understand why they wouldn't want one of the series' most recognisable characters to be gone for too long.
The reveal has also had a very good unintended side effect: it's (sort of) disproven DLC leaks that have been flying around ever since the game launched in January. While the first two DLC characters, Eddy and Lidia, were in line with what was reported, Heihachi's reveal is a total curveball. Interestingly, when producer Michael Murray was questioned on whether the decision to include Heihachi was made early in Tekken 8's development or more recently, Murray confirmed that it was the latter. Whether Bandai pivoted in response to what was pretty poor reception to the alleged leaks, or a decision made entirely separate from that is unknown.
