(Feature image courtesy Tekken Wiki)
Editor's Note: There are heavy Tekken story spoilers below, so please finish the Tekken 7 story before proceeding if you care about those sorts of things.
A Reddit user may have just uncovered the future of Heihachi Mishima, the Tekken series' favorite grumpy old man. In a Reddit thread posted to r/Tekken, u/killerfabivs posts a screengrab of a pachinko machine "trailer" of sorts, showing an army of robots with the trademark Heihachi hair style. The full, HD clip is below:
You'll first see the army of Jack-esque Heihachi bots at the 1:15 mark of the video. Though as users and outlets have reported, the slots seem to be based on the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 universe, though these trailers were included in the Tekken 7 gallery. These videos seem to be reminiscent of the "attract mode" that arcade machines have used for decades in order to entice players to put their money in. (To be fair, if you can resist the soundtrack and awesome animation of these, you deserve to hold onto your cash.)
Potential Impact on the Series
The Robo Heihachis offer up a way to keep Heihachi in the series without resorting to the trope of bringing him back from the dead again. If you finished Tekken 7's story mode, you know that Kazuya finally killed his old man and threw his body in a molten river of lava. If you watched Star Wars: Episode III, though, you know that throwing someone in lava isn't always a death sentence. For the time being though, Heihachi is dead. For those saying that a game like this can't possibly offer a new character, we offer you this lovely lady as our argument in support of MechHeihachi:
Eliza first debuted in the freemium Playstation 3 game Tekken Revolution. She then made her first main series appearance in Tekken 7 as a DLC character. Now, she's the first and only instance of a character from a spin-off game coming to the main series, but she could set the precedent for "forgotten" characters coming over to the numbered games. So there is hope for Metal Heihachi (and our precious mobile boy Bo Montana) yet.
Who would you want to see join the cast of future Tekken games? Join the Twin Galaxies community and let us know! If you'd like to see more of the Tekken pachinko trailers, YouTuber YellowMotion put them all together here for your viewing pleasure. For more Tekken-themed goodness, check out our guides on Negan and Julia!
