Bandai Namco has confirmed the first named update to Tekken 7, which has been around Japanese arcades for a bit now. It'll be titled Tekken 7: Fated Retribution, and it'll add new costumes, updated graphics, and new characters.

Oh, and one of those new characters is Akuma. Gouki, if you will. The evil devil man from the Street Fighter universe.

This promo image showing Heihachi and Akuma together is... kind of rad. I suppose this also means that the original Tekken 7 won't see a home release, and those home versions will now be based on the Fated Retribution update. Or whatever other update manages to make it out between now and then. That's more or less how Tekken 6 went, anyway.

The update will wind its way out via location tests before releasing to Japanese arcades. I've still yet to see much of Tekken 7, but I'd say that I've got high hopes for it. Hopefully adding Akuma doesn't make it too... weird? It'll probably be pretty cool. I wonder if this is a way of signaling "hey, we're still working on Tekken x Street Fighter" or if this is a way of signaling "here's the extent of the work we put into Tekken x Street Fighter so far, please forget about it." Either way, here's the trailer for the new update.

Oh, and hey, here's a bonus picture of Asuka on a bike!

Huh. Well I sure didn't expect that. Although, there was this thing during Capcom's/Namco's part during E3 when they met and stuff... Hm.

It's going to be revealed that Akuma is Kazuya's real father.

Satsui no Hado = Devil Gene.

Lars is the true heir to the Mishima Zaibatsu.

GREAT

Here's hoping someone gets thrown into a volcano

Really interesting that they are integrating him into the Tekken story. I do hope they will not mix the game universes though. Just have this Akuma be a different one than the one from Street Fighter. I definitely don't want Tekken to be in the next story mode of SFV for example.

His proportions in Tekken 7 are also hilarious.

My first thought was that he looked like HD Remix Akuma.

Real talk, can you side step the demon.

Man, fuck Akuma. That Asuka on a bike picture is the bee's knees!

I didn't even think about this and now that's going to be bugging me for days.

Akuma looks dope. And that is one well done trailer! I'm excited for Tekken 7!

And I watched a few matches of the Tekken 7 tournament last night and the gameplay looks pretty gooooooood!

I am in favor of Akuma being in things.

Does any char in Tekken besides Devil Jin have projectiles? Cus i could see Akuma being a bit broken :|

I think Tekken x Street Fighter is still very much a thing. I just feel like this is Harada's way of telling people, "see? it can work! now shut up, stop asking, leave me alone, and let me work goddammit!"

Also, dayum dat Asuka...

@almeida69: Considering you can sidestep fireballs, I don't think he'll be all too broken.

My girl Asuka!

I like how Jeff worries about Tekken getting too weird with Akuma in it. Isn't this the series that includes fighting panda's and bears? :)

I can't wait for Tekken 7. Sure other fighting games may be more balanced or have a better comp scene but I don't care about that. I just like the rad characters and extreme soundtrack.

@sku: Then maybe annoying is the word xD

i love the way they are doing this

Well that's cool and all but they still haven't brought over Julia/Jayce. I hope she's still in the pipeline, she's the only character I've been able to learn combos for.

EVO proved to me that Tekken 7 was a fun game to watch. So I hope this is a fun game to play as well whenever they get around to putting a console version out. The fact that Akuma is in this version just makes it even better.

SFV will get Kuma.

And 2 distinct fighting dinosaurs.

Retconning Akuma in to the pre-Tekken 1 story is the dumbest best thing I've seen in a while.

That was awesome! Had to go dig this up https://youtu.be/Hn_HaEf62h4

@l1ghtn1n said:

one way they might handle them is like the f2p tekken game's projectile character, where the projectiles were not that terribly slow on startup, and they recovered fast enough so that a character running in after sidestepping one may not necessarily have that much of an advantage

@barrabas: His arms are both thicker and longer than his legs. It looks extra weird in a game like Tekken where most characters have realistic proportions. Thankfully his in-game model looks a lot more sensible.

I wonder if he'll be in the Xbox One version, what with SFV being a console exclusive and all.

RARE AKUMA???

BUT THE LORE?!

Why do demon's hate Heihachi. He is the only one in the Mishima clan that does not turn into purple, winged monsters but somehow he's the bad guy. I hope Akuma lands in a Volcano soon.

The Mishima Zaibatsu is just good ol' capitalism. If the market wants a war economy, that is Solid Snake's problem.

Throwing demons into volcanoes is a thankless job.

Including guest characters in the lore is ballsy and kind of awesome, especially in what appears to be a major way. I'm admittedly kind of interested in this game now, where I probably wouldn't have been previously.

Zero reason he wouldn't be. SFV has nothing to do with this, and Street Fighter characters are not exclusive to PS4.

Weird he is in this but not in SFV at all. Still a really cool announcement. Hopefully we can get Terry Bogard in SFV soon.

Asuka a cute!

Brilliant fit and the best Akuma has ever looked.

That's actually pretty good.

ue4 was used to make both games so that a plus for a future Tekken x Street Fighter game, now when will that be maybe in 2019 is a good date for that game or it will be ps5 game

Damn akuma looks good in this!

Wait....so Akuma's just part of Tekken canon now? God damn.

@recspec: yo i think i understood two or three words in that.

Tekken 7 is suppose to be more story oriented than previous iterations, so if Akuma makes an appearance in this game and has relevance to this story line, that might be the link they need to make a SFxTK after this. Since the coming SF is only on the PS4 console (and PC) they could circunvate that exclusivity by launching SFxTK across all platforms (NX included)

When did we start using "lore" for story in video games?

I dig it!

Heihachi and Akuma are my two mains in these games, so that poster is SO GOOD.

And hey, thanks to NXT I know about saying Ah-ska instead of A-soo-ka, so there's that!

@dan_citi: That would be amazing!

There are a few like Jinpachi. Projectiles have traditionally been troll moves in Tekken that aren't used in competitive play due to the fact that they're all slow and extremely easy to dodge. They work well on newbies, however.

"Canon" means "contrived bullshit", ya see.

More characters to throw/be thrown in volcanoes!

well damn that was cool