Reina’s announcement last month brought Tekken 8’s launch roster to a close, but creator Bandai Namco has already disclosed that the game will include at least four additional fighters via its first season of DLC content. The team hasn’t yet released an official statement on which characters will be included in the Season 1 pass, but that information was probably going to surface soon for at least the first character as Bandai Namco will try to utilize it to generate further excitement for the release date. But it appears that some of the DLC fighters for Tekken 8 may have leaked ahead of schedule.
The leak originates from Reddit, where user u/JanFromPoland posted an image purportedly showing the German PSN page for Tekken 8 on the Tekken subreddit. According to the report, Roger, Xiao Meng, Armor King, and Eddy Gordo will be the four warriors that arrive as DLC. While the other characters have already made appearances in prior Tekken games, Xiao Meng is a brand-new character for the franchise, so it’s hard to predict how they will play.
Longtime Tekken archvillain Heihachi Mishima has been confirmed to not be coming back from the dead anytime soon, but at launch, Tekken 8 offers an impressive roster of 32 playable characters, including both new fighters and fan favorites from previous games. Sergei Dragunov, a member of the Russian special forces with supernatural powers who originally appeared in Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, was the most recent addition to the Tekken 8 roster to be confirmed. A few of Tekken 8’s new characters are Reina, a teenage martial artist with an enigmatic link to the notorious Mishima lineage, and Victor Chevalier, a well-known French superspy who uses a katana in combat.
Leak gives potential ideas about the Character
Thanks to a leak posted by Reddit user JanFromPoland (via Trem45), enthusiastic fans now have a potential idea of what characters may be added to Tekken 8 once it launches. They shared a purported picture taken from a German PlayStation Network page that lists the contents of the Deluxe Edition of Tekken 8, which includes a Year 1 Pass with character DLC. The combatants on the list are Armor King, Eddy Gordo, Xiao Meng, and Roger the Kangaroo. It is noteworthy to note, though, that the US PlayStation Network page for Tekken 8 does not include these characters specifically; instead, it just lists the Year 1 Pass as a bonus for the Deluxe and Ultimate Editions of the game.
If this current leak is accurate, it’s only the most recent of around a year’s worth of illegal Tekken 8 releases. Just before the Game Awards 2022 in December of last year, Yoshimitsu and Alex were leaked; however, in the end, only Yoshimitsu was formally confirmed for Tekken 8. To the dismay of Tekken 8 director Katsuhiro Harada, several characters such as Bryan Fury were leaked before their formal release. Furthermore, back in May, the character choice screen for Tekken 8 was revealed.
As with all of the previous Tekken 8 leaks, JanFromPoland just posted a list of alleged DLC characters. As such, players are urged to take this information with a grain of salt for the time being. No official confirmation has been made. Fans may receive official confirmation of Tekken 8’s intended roster of post-launch DLC fighters there, as Katsuhiro Harada is presently in Los Angeles for The Game Awards 2023 event.
