Heihachi rises from the dead as Tekken 8’s third character DLC

Heihachi Mishima, the mustachioed villain of the Tekken series, will be the next DLC character for Tekken 8. He was last seen with his beloved son Kazuya, who threw him into a volcano. Of course, for the cast of this 3D fighting game, completely submerging themselves in incredibly hot liquid rock is just a familiar family prank, sort of like forcing your grandfather to do the Ice Bucket Challenge, only with lava. No one really expected the horn-haired headbutt to be completely removed from the series. But I’m a little surprised to see him back so soon.

The third DLC character, Heihachi is set to arrive sometime this fall, but no exact release date has been set yet. He follows one-button villain Eddy Gordo and Polish Prime Minister Lydia Sobieska, both of whom were recently added to the game.

As you can probably tell from the trailer, players will also get an additional story mode chapter tied to the old man, where Heihachi trains a group of henchman monks to sprint across burning coals. Very funny, Mr. Mishima. Tekken 8 has “character episodes” for each playable biffer from the base game, but the newer DLC characters don’t have those, so it’s nice to see that Eddy and Lydia also seem to play a big role in what the old, immortal man is up to. The additional story chapter, we’re told, will be free for all players, whether you purchase these characters or not.

As I said in our Tekken 8 review, it’s a solid beat ’em up. My main complaint (aside from lamenting the loss of a slower and more cautious playstyle) was that my own favorite characters were nowhere to be seen. That’s still the case, unfortunately. I can’t imagine relative C-listers Miguel or Josie coming anytime soon. At least not before Marduk, Lucky Chloe, or Armor King show up. My best bet is to wait for wisecracking supercop Lei Wulong, my favorite for silly fights and goofing around. Ah, maybe next year.

Bandai Namco announced the return of the old miser at the EVO 2024 fighting game tournament, where Arslan Ash faced off against Atif Ijaz in the Tekken 8 finals in a typically thrilling match that made judicious use of the game’s new Heatmeter mechanic, so check it out if you’re curious to see what high-level Tekkenizing looks like.