TEKKEN 8 had a bunch of new reveals at this year's Evo, including the first gameplay trailer for Armor King, and the reveal of the final season two DLC Character, Miary Zo, who brings a distinct look, a stage, and a milestone for the TEKKEN series.
Before Miary Zo's official reveal, though, we at Destructoid got a sneak peek of the trailer at Evo 2025 and got to talk to multiple members of the TEKKEN 8 development team. This included Kohei Ikeda (Nakatsu), the chief producer and game director, and Katsuhiro Harada, producer and executive game Director on the TEKKEN Project. Producer Michael Murray translated for both Nakatsu and Harada during our interview.
The character's reveal over the weekend has been making headlines in Africa for helping to keep a centuries-old material art from Madagascar alive. Harada and the team told us at Destructoid that the team wanted to keep the authenticity of the region in TEKKEN 8.
"So we actually went to Madagascar, and Madagascar as a whole actually has a very vibrant TEKKEN community who are actively doing like tournaments. And so we, ahead of time, got in contact with some of the people in the community." Harada told Destructoid. "Once we went there, we got to talk to people on the ground, and then also even go to a school, to meet the students and faculty and ask questions about the local culture. At the time, no one knew that they were doing research for a new character."
Murray then went on to further explain Harada and Nakatsu's trip to the region (one which he said he couldn't sadly attend but wished he had), saying that Madagascar is a unique country because of its influences.
"They tried to make it authentic by working with some advisors in the community there to make sure that they're creating something that looks like it would be from that area," Murray told Destructoid. Harada then joined in, saying that "It was quite challenging, but we were able to create something pretty unique, because we actually had someone from the country do the voiceover for it, which was challenging, because it seems that in Madagascar, they don't have a huge industry for voice acting. It's mainly a few people who do voice dubs."
After Harada and the team discussed their process for creating the character and their trip, I wanted to understand the origin of the idea and why they chose Madagascar as the basis for a new original character. Harada and the team were quick in explaining their decisions, as well as how they went about creating characters as a whole.
"Sometimes it's a particular fighting style that we choose, or maybe a certain concept sketch from an artist that starts it off," Harada said. "But for this time, it was more locking in on that region first and deciding that we've never done someone from Africa, so we would like to try it. But then, even within that African area, Madagascar is itself quite unique. So although it's somewhere where most people have heard of before, no one knows a whole lot about it. So we thought that would be a really unique starting point, and that if they go there, they would get some kind of inspiration on a concept to flesh out."
Harada also continued to express his ideas on adding new characters to the game each season and what the team looks to do to make as many people as happy.
"We start off with a roster initially. And although there are many characters that we wanted to put in—we just couldn't, because of the amount of time and resources." Harada told us. "For Season One, the theme was story-based with [things like] the return of Heihachi, but then also, kind of the support characters, story-wise... But for season two, it was more trying to get those fan favorites that still weren't in the game yet, plus doing a new original character no one had seen before. Because we wanted to make something new for a change, but while also trying to please fans who are waiting for their favorite."
Harada also touched on the wider Tekken story when deciding DLC and new characters, considering the game is the longest-running story in video games. And while the story is quite important, it's not the "be-all end-all" when deciding which characters to make.
"The character has to feel unique and stand out, and then we find a way to make it work." Harada told us, but when I asked him further if we can trust his work moving forward considering for the longest time he said Heihachi was dead and would never come back to the game, only for him to appear as a season one DLC character, Harada only said he was "sorry that he did it on purpose" that it was "planned for a bit" to make it a surprise, and for how far we can trust him moving forward?
"It's hard to tell."
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