Tekken 8 Heihachi Preview: Tekken's most ruthless fighter returns

We very rarely preview individual characters in fighting games here at Gamereactor, simply because it's hard to get a really good idea of how they will fit into the meta and stack up to their opponents, plus we so rarely get them before release. But... Heihachi Mishima isn't just anyone, of course, and while he's not technically even in Tekken 8, there's no doubt that his spirit was all over the game when it launched earlier this year. Plus, he remains the most iconic face of the series.

Bandai Namco knows this, which is why Heihachi's arrival is getting some extra attention, and in addition to probably the most anticipated DLC character of all (though I'm hoping for Bob to be added at some point), there's also a brand new campaign spread across eight chapters. And if you've played Tekken before, you'll know that the campaigns in these titles actually deserve to be called campaigns.

I recently had the chance to get a jump start on this campaign and play through the first five chapters to find out how it's at all possible that Heihachi could return given his somewhat unfortunate ending in Tekken 7, where he was thrown into a volcano by Kazuya Mishima. There's nothing supernatural about it though, apparently he was fished out by monks just before he fell into the lava (exactly why they were there and how it is that Kazuya didn't notice them doesn't tell the story - but let's not get bogged down in the details).

But this "near-death" experience combined with ruthless beatings has obviously taken its toll on Heihachi too, who was left with the monks after losing his memory. And it's here that we get to meet him in a campaign that contains pretty much all the ingredients we've come to expect from the series. In addition to Heihachi himself, Eddy Gordo and, above all, Lidia Sobieska play the main roles in this mini-story that largely takes place in parallel with the regular Tekken campaign and thus helps to make it a little more detailed for anyone who follows that story.

Even if you don't get Eddy and Lidia, they're still playable here, so you can go through the story, which of course means a whole lot of reasons to fight. When I leave Heihachi behind, he's still good and possibly a little confused, but whether he'll stay that way all the way to the end is unclear. Part of me hopes he continues with his new personality until at least Tekken 9, while perhaps it seems more likely that he'll revert back to his old self soon enough - but we won't know that until it's launch day.

The big draw, however, is getting to play with Heihachi himself, and with him comes the Genmaji Temple level, which I suspect will be a fan-favourite thanks to lots of mystical and Japanese mumbo jumbo. Anyone who is a Tekken enthusiast will quickly notice several differences in Heihachi's play style, where he too has been redesigned from scratch according to the same premises as all other characters when the graphics engine was upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.

For my own part, and without the ability to compare side-by-side, I'll just note that the Tekken series' main antagonist is still scarily brutal and powerful, and combined with the aggressive system in Tekken 8, he feels almost more ruthless than ever. This is definitely a fighter you don't want to face with his back too close to the edges of the level, as the risk of nasty air-juggles that take chunks out of your health bar is very high.

It quickly becomes clear that Heihachi is still not a good beginner's character, although Simple Mode allows ambitious amateurs to use the beast, which can hopefully make him a popular fighter even among new fans.