A viral Tekken 8 character trailer of Baki Hanma got the fighting community excited about the potential of a playable Baki from the manga series.
After purchasing Tekken 8 you might have been confused to not find Baki Hanma in the roster of characters. Baki's Tekken 8 character trailer racked up 3 million views on YouTube, but what you might not have realised is it was actually just a fan-made video that got picked up across social media and taken as an official announcement.
Will Baki Hanma be in Tekken 8?
There is no official announcement or rumours to suggest Baki Hanma will be in Tekken 8. However, the fighting community was convinced the character was coming to Tekken 8 after a fan-made video in the same style as the official Tekken 8 character trailers went viral and was mistaken for an official video.
The video, created by a YouTube called HANMASON, was published on January 22, 2023. It included the same intro and outro as the official videos from Bandai Namco, and the 3D render of Baki looked impressive.
The fan-made Tekken 8 Baki Hanma trailer now has over 3 million views on YouTube, making it one of the most viewed videos on the platform for the fighting game. You can watch the original video below:
No guest characters confirmed says Game Director
There is clearly a demand for a playable Baki in a fighting game like Tekken 8, but unfortunately outside of this one fan-made video there is nothing else to suggest he will ever be part of the franchise. What is more, Tekken 8 Game Director Katsuhiro Harada confirmed they have yet to make any decisions on upcoming Tekken 8 guest characters.
Who is Baki Hanma?
Baki is the protagonist of a rather iconic manga called Baki the Grappler, which first came out in 1991. Since then 149 manga volumes have been released along with several adaptions to anime. The character recently saw a surge of publicity after Netflix launched a new original anime series called Baki in 2018. The series is now in its third season, and introduced a new audience to the world of Baki, which is now more than three decades old.
Given just how graphic and epic the fight sequences are in the Netflix Baki series, it's no surprise fighting game fans got excited about the idea of Baki in Tekken 8.
That said, there are still four DLC characters to look forward to in 2024, with Eddy Gordo the first of them.