There is a long legacy of guest characters in fighting games. And the difference in quality between guests is as great as the long list – the tradition deals with the rough with the smooth, to be honest. In Tekken alone, we have Gon from Masashi Tanaka's manga (farting dinosaur), Negan from The Walking Dead (a boring fart), and Akuma from Street Fighter (hard old hair).
But Tekken 8 game launched without any of that. Although it was a good amount of content on disk when the game launched, producer Katsuhiro Harada and his team of developers did not include any licensed characters. And that's because, it turns out, they were saving everything for later.
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At the 2024 Game Awards, Geoff Keighley made a big announcement that might make some fans happy… and others very angry. So what's the news? Clive Rosfield from Final fantasy 16 is coming to Tekken 8 as the final Season One DLC character. And why are people angry? Well, because they weren't expecting someone so… new.
For the past year or so, people have been clamoring for Final Fantasy 7's Tifa so much that even Harada himself had to weigh in and talk about it. “We all know she's attractive and I understand that,” he said fall 10 months ago. “But so far we haven't decided anything about guest characters etc.”
Fast forward to late 2024 and it looks like Harada and Bandai Namco have indeed linked up with Square Enix about all things Final Fantasy… And the buzz hasn't died yet, either – just check out the words Tifa and Tekken together on Twitter or BlueSky and you'll see what I'm talking about.
But, well, right? She is not coming. We'll have to deal with Clive instead – but that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it? Noctis was a great addition to Tekken 7even though many people questioned why he was allowed to bring a sword (or, swords) to a fist fight. That criticism is false, here, however, because Tekken 8 introduced Victor — and he has a freakin' gun, for Christ's sake.
If you want to see what Clive is about for yourself, and maybe mentally at least Tifa would be turned out to be a better choice after all, check out the trailer below.
This is not the first time Bandai Namco has caused controversy Tekken 8 DLC plans. Back in October, with the release of Heihachi, the developer he had to reject his plans to sell the veteran fighter's platform outside of the season pass after fans began boycotting the game and sinking its Steam review score.
Clive will be available in Tekken 8 xxx.
