Tekken 8 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth are two of the biggest games to come out this year and since crossovers are all the craze these days, fans are desperate to see at least one of their favourite characters from the PlayStation 5 exclusive make their way into the fighting game’s playable roster.
One name that has emerged as a leading candidate is Tifa Lockhart, known for getting close and personal with her aggressive fist-centric fighting style.
Fans have been so loud with their desire to see Tifa in Tekken 8 that the game’s vocal director has had to address it – twice.
Let me tell you how to Unlock.
First, you need to become friends with Shinji Hashimoto-san, then if you can convince Tetsuya Nomura-san, then you can Unlock. https://t.co/P7fdhDryeu— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) February 18, 2024
Several weeks after downplaying the rumors that Tifa will be a playable character in Tekken 8, Katsuhiro Harada has finally had enough of all the tweets and decided to reply in one of the best ways imaginable.
Perhaps waking up in an accommodating mood, the usually straightforward executive let a fan in on the secret to unlocking Tifa in Tekken 8, which involves being friends with Shinji Hashimoto and convincing Tetsuya Nomura.
The former is synonymous with Square Enix, spending decades as the Final Fantasy series’ brand manager in addition to co-creating Kingdom Hearts. While he no longer works at the Japanese gaming giant after retiring in May 2022, he’s obviously still got some pull within the company. As for the latter, Nomura is, among other things, basically one of the creatives behind Final Fantasy, most recently serving as the creative director of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
One way of interpreting what Katsuhiro Harada said is that Tifa’s inclusion in Tekken 8 is all in the hands of the powers that be.
With that said, some players seem to think that they’ve seen or played as Tifa and Cloud in an older Tekken game, which isn’t true. Both were previously playable in a fighting game but not in Tekken. Instead, most were likely talking about Ehrgeiz, a fighting game created and designed by Harada’s predecessor, Seiichi Ishii. This fighting game, which borrowed heavily from the first two Tekken titles, featured six characters from Final Fantasy 7 as part of its roster, including Tifa and Cloud.
If you have a faint memory of playing Tekken as Cloud or Tifa in the late 90s or early 2000s, you were most likely playing Ehrgeiz.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear when the first wave of post-launch Tekken 8 characters will arrive and how many season passes are in the pipeline. The only DLC character confirmed so far is Eddy Gordo.
