Tekken 8 producer finally acknowledges fan demand for Final Fantasy 7 crossover

29 January 2024 , 19:00

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Final Fantasy 7's Tifa Lockhart is such a popular fan request for Tekken 8 that the series producer had to acknowledge it (Image: Square Enix)

Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada has finally acknowledged the overwhelming fan demand for Final Fantasy 7's Tifa Lockhart to make it into Tekken 8's DLC roster.

Tekken is no stranger to crossover fighters. Tekken 3 kicked things off with the inclusion of Gon – the farting dinosaur from the manga of the same name – but it was Tekken 7 which really sent things into overdrive. Tekken 7's base roster featured Street Fighter's Akuma (who was a major player in the story mode of that game) before the DLC included Fatal Fury's Geese Howard, Final Fantasy 15's Noctis Lucis Caelum and – bizarrely – The Walking Dead's Negan.

Series producer Katsuhiro Harada is also no stranger to being bombarded with fan requests for the Tekken roster, so much so that his de-facto catchphrase is "Don't ask me for sh*t". The lack of crossover fighters in Tekken 8 has unsurprisingly increased the amount of queries about guest fighters in the latest King of Iron Fist Tournament, but one name has risen above the rest.

Final Fantasy 7's Tifa Lockhart has become such a popular request for Tekken 8 from fans – especially since Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is releasing next month – that Harada has finally spoken about it, saying in a tweet "We all know she is attractive and I understand that. But as yet we have not decided anything about guest characters etc".

Rebirth

Not only does this seemingly rule out Tifa being included in the Year 1 DLC, but guest characters may not be included in the first season pass at all. On the one hand, this is good, since a lot of Tekken mainstays (like my main, Miguel) are missing from the Tekken 8 roster at the moment, but it's clear that guest characters are a great way to generate hype for a fighter.

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Considering Tekken 7's inclusion of Noctis, I'd say that Tifa's chances are better than most fan requests, and to be honest, she should've been the choice over Noctis in the first place if you ask me. I can't think of any Final Fantasy character who would fit in with Tekken as much as Tifa.

However, if it were up to me, I'd pick a fighter from another RPG, one that happened to launch the same day as Tekken 8 perhaps. Considering Kazuma Kiryu was among the most highly requested fighters for Tekken 7, a character from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth would go down a hit for me. I would love to see Kiryu make an appearance in Tekken after years of requests, although I can't deny I would love to see Ichiban Kasuga even more.

Scott McCrae