With Tekken 8 now released and perhaps a way to distract dataminers, the franchise’s long-time director Katsuhiro Harada is spending more time on Twitter than before, sharing funny anecdotes, trolling fans, and telling interesting stories about his time as a developer.
A unique experience in particular stood out, which involves the internet’s favorite family guy, Vin Diesel.
According to Harada-san, Diesel had a chance to play Tekken 6 earlier in its development but it was just too big to bring to his hotel room at the time.
It was quite a long time ago…while we were developing TEKKEN 6, his manager contacted NAMCO. He was just visiting Japan and wanted to play the latest TEKKEN.
However, at the time, it was still only running on an incredibly huge development machine, so we couldn't bring it to… https://t.co/8vtGhOS1Mw— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) February 18, 2024
As Harada was teasing everyone about how they can bring Final Fantasy 7‘s Tifa Lockhart to Tekken 8, he decided to humor a fan who jokingly asked why Vin Diesel, specifically his role in the Fast and Furious franchise, Dominic Torreto, wasn’t in a Tekken game. While the 56-year-old Hollywood actor never got close to getting a role in Tekken, he did, at one point, almost play an earlier version of Tekken 6, presumably around the mid-2000s.
Harada revealed that he got a phone call about Diesel’s interest in playing Tekken 6 before it came out but because it was still early in its development at the time, bringing it to Diesel’s hotel room proved impossible. He also added that “there was too much confidential information,” which is expected of a game in its infancy.
Harada ended his story by saying that Diesel ultimately gave up and thanked the team for considering his request.
Vin Diesel is one of Hollywood’s biggest nerds. Before the Fast and Furious franchise blew up, Diesel had his hands in projects that later enjoyed a cult following, including the Riddick franchise, which has one of the best video game adaptations ever. He also grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons, even bringing one of his original characters to life in the 2015 fantasy action film, The Last Witch Hunter.
It’s safe to say that if the Tekken development team was ever open to bringing in someone to playtest an early build of the game and respect it enough not to leak any information, it’s probably him.
Lucky for Harada and everyone involved in the project, Diesel didn’t go Dominic Torreto and used a thingamajig to help him get exactly what he wanted.
As for Vin Diesel, he’s currently involved in several video game projects, including signing on as the executive producer of Ark 2 and its animated spin-off, Ark: The Animated Series.
