Tekken 8’s Katsuhiro Harada asks fans to “leak” the next character, leading to chaos 

With Heihachi Mishima close to releasing, Tekken creator Katsuhiro Harada took to social media site X to ask fans who they think the fourth and final character of Tekken 8’s season 1 is. Accompanying this request was a template featuring the roster of the three current playable characters and a blank fourth box. This caused a wide variety of speculations to come to light; some of which seem plausible while other ones are just downright hilarious. 

Plausible characters include Tekken alumni Roger, Anna Williams, and even Street Fighter’s Akuma (the latter of whom was in Tekken 7). While Akuma may have seemed out of the ordinary back then, he is nothing compared to the other characters fans want to see. 

Final Fantasy VII’s Tifa and Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion have long been requested as guest characters so it’s not surprising to see fans putting them in. However, niche choices such as Devil May Cry’s Vergil, Sonic the Hedgehog’s Shadow, and even Metal Gear’s Big Boss help shake things up.  

Not content with staying within the confines of video games, one person even requested for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ David Martinez to be added into Tekken 8 due to the fact that Guilty Gear Strive will be getting Lucy Kushinada as a guest character next year. Other requests that leaned into the world of anime included ones for Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure’s biggest baddie Dio, Dragon Ball’s Son Goku, and Bleach’s Ichigo Kurosaki. 

But the most striking character to fill the fourth season 1 slot has to be Katsuhiro Harada himself. Considering the number of times he’s raised his fist for photos and how synonymous the game developer is with the Tekken franchise, it was only a matter of time before fans got wise and requested for him to be put into the game. Harada already appears in Tekken 8’s Arcade Quest mode, so it wouldn’t be that big of a leap for him to become a playable character. 

Who do you think should close off Tekken 8’s season one character roster? Is it one of the fan suggestions? Or is there some other character you would want to see in the game? While Harada has said that serious content proposals from fans are generally completely avoided due to legal issues, he seems to be having a blast looking at these fan creations.