A new datamine for Bandai Namco Entertainment’s upcoming fighting game, Tekken 8, has reveled special intros, character portraits, and more.
Update: Tekken 8 producer Katsuhiro Harada has confirmed the accuracy of the leaks, but went on to state that they contain old information that has already been changed or deleted. Not only that, but the source of the leaks has been mostly identified. According to him, the information that is currently leaked is only given to organizations that are involved in debugging and localization. The next leak will identify the individual leaker, he said. The development team has set up different parts of the ROM for every organization (internal as well as external), allowing them to trace the leaker in future.
According to an anonymous 4chan leaker, the prior character roster leak appears to be entirely true. They added that, while Namco had encrypted character IDs using animals names ( for example: Jin as ANT, Xiaoyu as RAT and Law as PIG), they still have many leftovers in game files, such as Lars and Xiaoyu’s voice lines mentioning Alisa and Panda.
Tekken 8 Special Intros Details
Regarding special intros in Tekken 8, the leaker shared the following details:
- Lili has a special intro with Azucena (just like in trailer)
- Xiaoyu has a special intro with Panda
- Asuka and Leroy have a special intros with Feng Wei
- Jack-8 has a special intro with Alisa
- Bryan has a special intro with Yoshimitsu (much like their endings from Tekken 5)
- Nina and Lars have special intros with Lee
- Kazuya has special intros with Shaheen and Reina
- Devil Jin has special intros with Jun, Jin and Claudio
- Zafina has a special intro with Claudio (her hand is still transformed into Azazel’s hand)
- Steve has special intros with Hwoarang and King
Additionally, the leaker mentioned that they were unable to find traces of Victor, Leo, Dragunov or Kuma. However, Marduk’s fighting style is present in the Tekken 8 files and the text “Vale Tudo” has been translated to all the languages that game supports, so he is likely to be present in Tekken 8, they said. They also stated that the game files for Tekken 8 contain one of Negan’s customization items, namely his Lucille bat. According to them, these files are Tekken 7 leftovers.
Recently, it was reported that the release of Tekken 8 may happen by March, 2024. In its Financial Report for the First Quarter of the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2024, Bandai Namco Entertainment had shared that it is planning to release major titles, including Naruto X Boruto, in the second half of the Fiscal Year. While Tekken 8 wasn’t specifically mentioned, it is indeed a major upcoming title for the publisher, and, therefore, is highly likely to be included in the mentioned major releases.
