Harada lied! Heihachi Mishima is Tekken 8’s next DLC character

Despite Game Director telling us he was "completely dead", Heihachi Mishima was revealed as the Autumn DLC character in Tekken 8!

Yes, that's right the grandpa of Tekken 8 and one of its most iconic characters managed to survive his trip into an active volcano. His survival was shared during a teaser video shown on the final day of EVO 2024.

The Heihachi's Trailer reveal first shown at EVO 2024 starts out looking like simply a trailer for a new story mode. We see martial artists high in the snowy mountains practising, but their move sets look familiar, with one seeming to be recreating Heihachi's ff2 launcher.

We then see an airplane with Polish air force on the side, and a report that this group is known as the Tekken Monks, and that they "utilize techniques reminiscent of those from the Mishima-style fighting Karate".

Shortly after we see the masked figure who appears to be the Tekken Monks master showcasing lightning powers which is typically associated with the Mishima family. It's Heihachi all right! From the trailer it seems Heihachi's new army will be a focal point of an updated Story Mode, and that we'll learn how he survived the fall into the volcano.

In the trailer Eddy Gordo, Yoshimitsu and Lidia are also all seen at the monk temple. The choice of trio is particularly important, because they are the same trio that united but failed to take down Kazuya at the end of Tekken 7 at the G Corporation's Millenium Tower.

Heihachi Mishima will be released as a DLC character in Autumn 2024. Considering Eddy released April 4 and Lidia is arriving on July 25, its fair to assume we would probably see Heihachi some time in October or November. The news of Heihachi also puts to bed a previous supposed leak that the third character of Season 1 would be Craig Marduk.

Heihachi Mishima was believed to have died at the end of Tekken 7, which made his reveal at EVO 2024 a big shock. Although Heihachi has "died" before, the introduction of his previously unknown daughter Reina as a new playable character in Tekken 8 made some fans believe it was final, especially as she possesses many of his moves and could potentially have been a way for Bandai Namco to preserve Heihachi's legacy.

Heihachi's death in Tekken 7 was at the hands of his own son Kazuya, who went on to become the principal villain once more in Tekken 8. The two engage in a battle to the death, and after Kazuya deals a seemingly fatal blow, Heihachi falls to the ground. Kazuya then picks up the body and chucks it off the top of a volcano, and we see Heihachi's body descend into the lava. Kazuya then says the line: "A fight is about who's left standing. Nothing else".

The fact Kazuya threw his father off a platform into the volcano was of course a throwback to Tekken 1, which starts with Heihachi throwing Kazuya off a cliff top.

Heihachi's supposed death in Tekken 7, brings about a lot of questions on how on earth he could be alive in Tekken 8. Especially as Tekken 7's executive producer Katsuhiro Harada said in an interview in 2023 that Heihachi was completely dead, despite it being his favorite character in the franchise.

“He looked pretty dead to me,” Harada said in the interview with TheGamer. “Heihachi had failed to actually convert the devil gene, and he doesn’t have it so there’s no way he can revive like Kazuya or Jin can."

Tekken 7's producer (and translator) Michael Murray also added in the same interview, that Harada had told the dev team that given Heihachi had died so many times before, that they had to make sure it's convincing this time.

So what gives? Well, at the end of the Heihachi Mishima trailer shown at EVO 2024 we see Heihachi in what looks like the same ripped clothes he was wearing in the fight with Kazuya in Tekken 7. Our theory is the masked Heihachi we see at the beginning of the trailer is current day Heihachi, while the "reveal" we see of Heihachi at the end is in fact a flashback to moments after he fell into the volcano.

His skin is noticeably red, there's pools of sweat on his face and steam coming off his body. There are however, no burn marks, so if his skin never touched the lava... who or what saved him? Especially if he does not have the devil gene.

One potential clue is the statue we see briefly at the end of the trailer, which looks very similar to a previous villain of the franchise Ancient Ogre. Ancient Ogre was the main villain in Tekken 3 and Tekken 5. While Ancient Ogre did not appear in Tekken 4, we saw Heihachi trying to use pieces of its DNA to grant him immortality, but the experiment failed because he lacked the Devil Gene - hence why he organized the King of Iron Fist Tournament 4, to draw Jin and Kazuya in.

At the end of Tekken 7 however, when Kazuya deals the last blow to Heihachi we see his power seem to go through Heihachi. Could he have potentially passed on the devil gene to Heihachi and finally awoken the Ancient Ogre DNA inside him to help him survive the fall into the volcano? Or was it simply a classic Mishima electric attack?

We'll likely get an answer soon enough, but it might not be a deep one. Especially considering the surprising explanation in Tekken 8 for how Jun Kazama is alive after supposedly dying at the end of Tekken 2.

For now it's just a bit of fun to theorise but ultimately the fact Heihachi is coming back for Tekken 8 is great news for the franchise. Marduk as a Season 1 character? No, thank you.