When the first trailer for the upcoming "Tekken 7: Fated Retribution" arcade update was released last month, many fans were surprised to learn that Akuma is included in the player roster. Now, Bandai Namco revealed how the iconic "Street Fighter" character was included in the game and how he will tie into "Tekken's" lore.
Senior game designer Michael Murray and visual design manager Kousuke Waki explained how they came up with the idea to include Akuma into "Fated Retribution's" character roster. According to Murray, they wanted to incorporate the character into the game's story more fully, so as the crossover not come up as "a cheesy gimmick."
Murray said that what they did is similar to what Tecmo did when they included characters from Sega's "Virtua Fighter" game franchise in their "Dead or Alive 5" game released in 2012, Attack of the Fanboy reported.
Akuma is one of the popular characters from Capcom's "Street Fighter" franchise. In "Fated Retribution", he is said to be tasked with killing the game's main villain Heihachi Mishima,
However, Murray said that, as of current, Akuma is the only planned guest character for the game, stating that he and game producer Katsuhiro Harada has always been against the idea of including guest characters from other games.
"But Akuma fits the bill, and we wanted to tie him into the story," he remarked.
The two also detailed the new changes they have included in the "Fated Retribution" expansion pack. Waki said that they wanted to highlight more of the smaller changes, including newer costumes.
He added that, with the development team becoming more accustomed to the Unreal Engine 4 platform used in the game, they were able to do some more subtle graphics changes, Playstation Lifestyle reported.
No release date has yet been announced for "Tekken 7: Fated Retribution". The original "Tekken 7" game hit the arcades in Japan in March of 2015 and is set to be released for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One later this year.