Tekken 8 – officially, only two more fighters have been announced but the entire 32-man roster may have leaked (pic: Bandai Namco via Sony)
A pair of new Tekken 8 characters appears to have corroborated but one, not two, but three different leaks that give away the full roster.
Remember when Street Fighter 6’s entire launch roster leaked long before the game even had a release date? Well, it seems the same thing has happened with Tekken 8, revealing precisely 32 playable fighters in total.
At first, there was enough of an argument to be made that it was fake, but after two new characters were revealed during Evo 2023, it’s certainly looking more legitimate.
Renders for the two characters in question – Raven and newcomer Azuceda – were shared by accident by Bandai Namco Europe on Twitter, ahead of their official trailers. However, said renders were also present in the aforementioned roster leak, which popped up days before the Twitter leak.
There’s quite a bit to break down here, so let’s start with the two newly revealed fighters. Raven is a popular ninja character that debuted in Tekken 5, but was replaced in Tekken 7 by his superior, Master Raven.
He’s now back with some new shadow clone techniques, much to fans’ delight, while his name was found in a datamine of the recent Tekken 8 beta alongside five other unannounced characters just a week before his reveal.
As for Azuceda, she is Tekken 8’s first wholly original character, a mixed martial artist from Peru who is obsessed with coffee and boasts a special dodge mechanic.
Although her name wasn’t included in the aforementioned datamine, an image of the supposed full roster that’s appeared online includes both her and Raven on the select screen. This image appeared a few days before their renders were shared by Bandai Namco, which makes it less likely to be a fan-made fake.
What’s more, the other five characters from the datamine – all of whom are returning fighters – can be seen in the leaked roster image as well, despite how blurry it is.
On top of all that, it turns out Azuceda was leaked months earlier via a random 4chan post that claimed to know the identities of three new Tekken 8 characters.
It correctly stated not just Azuceda’s name but her role as a ‘Peruvian mixed martial artist whose entire personality is ‘muh coffee’’, which is far too specific to be pure guess work.
The other two characters are said to be Victor, a French secret agent, and Reina, the secret daughter of series villain Heihachi. Considering Heihachi died in Tekken 7’s story mode, Reina may serve as his replacement by retaining his moveset.
This still leaves seven fighters unaccounted for. While the leaked character select screen is rather blurry, a few yet to be announced characters can be discerned, particularly the two playable bears Kuma and Panda.
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Bandai Namco is unlikely to be happy with any of these leaks. In fact, a YouTuber, Moonsault Slayer, says they were hit by a copyright strike from the publisher after they uploaded a video discussing the leaked roster.
While it could be to prevent misinformation being spread, it’s far more likely that it’s because the leak is real. At the very least, trying to suppress the info is only going to make more people think it’s legitimate, rather than forget it exists.
Tekken 8 is in development for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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A pair of new Tekken 8 characters appears to have corroborated but one, not two, but three different leaks that give away the full roster.
