Tekken 8 director Katsuhiro Harada’s official X/Twitter account has rapidly turn out to be the preventing recreation group city sq. thanks partly to his further lengthy behind-the-scenes trivia posts and occasional Waffle Home asides. Harada’s newest little bit of Tekken lore dump put to mattress a long-running fandom notion that Tekken devs have at all times hated Anna Williams.
In an impromptu Q&A X/Twitter submit, Harada responded to a fan’s query about the relationship dynamic between Nina and Anna. In his 1,317-word response — which was written throughout his lunch break — Harada additionally addressed the group rumor about Tekken devs hating Anna by stating the actual reverse.
“By the means, there’s a small group of people that imagine that Anna isn’t cherished by the growth workforce they usually even say that Anna is hated [by the] dev workforce,” Harada wrote. “Effectively, it would not matter, As a result of it is NOT true in any respect, however the Anna portrayed in the story of TEKKEN is full of numerous ideas and emotions from me and the animation employees.”
For these unversed in the melodramatic cleaning soap opera that’s preventing recreation story modes, Tekken’s long-running narrative will be boiled down as a household drama taking part in out in a sequence of high-stakes martial arts tournaments. Whereas the epicenter of the sequence’ familial beef includes the Mishima household’s ever-increasing household tree, Anna and Nina Williams function Tekken’s tertiary rivalry. Some FGC gamers have felt Tekken builders closely favor Nina as the sequence’ golden baby in that rivalry and examine Anna as its black sheep.
A lot of the Tekken fandom’s notion of Anna being disliked by its builders was instilled by the variety of occasions Nina would trounce Anna in a myriad of cutscenes and win quotes all through the sequence. This notion additionally wasn’t helped by the undeniable fact that Nina Williams is most of the time assured as a launch character in Tekken recreation rosters, together with Tekken 8. In distinction, Anna was allotted as a DLC character in Tekken 7 and has but to be introduced in Tekken 8.
In the submit, Harada revealed that he primarily labored on the growth of Anna in Tekken 3 and that he personally created the names of her strikes.
“Initially, Nina was extremely popular with gamers since the starting of Tekken. There’s a yin and yang to issues, and Anna’s recognition was usually contrasted with Nina’s,” Harada mentioned. “Again in Tekken 1 and a couple of, many mid-boss characters have been ‘convertible character’ to different characters, however we wished to make Anna from Tekken 3 as distinctive as attainable to achieve recognition.”
Harada additionally acknowledged the hole in the sister’s recognition all through the years and took the place that even when Nina outshines Anna like a one-sided episode of Tom and Jerry, the workforce made positive Anna’s charms shone through for players.
“For that reason, Anna’s settings in the recreation mirror the emotions of the folks answerable for Anna on our growth workforce. For instance, Anna’s settings embody the following: “Anna is uninterested in shedding not solely the battle with Nina, but in addition the recognition rating in the Iron Fist Event. I imagine that was the very sentiment of these of us answerable for Anna (myself, the animation workforce, and the modeling workforce),” Harada added.
Harada concluded his big Anna and Nina Williams lore dump with a listing of triva about their relationship that mainly doubled down agaisnt the miconception that Anna is totally washed compared to her sister. Listed below are a few of the notable bits of pro-Anna trivia:
- Anna is a greater prepare dinner than Nina
- Anna is best at darts
- Anna is best with heavy weaponry like an anti-tank rocket launcher
- Nina solely assassinated Anna’s fiance in Tekken 7 (and stole her marriage ceremony costume) as a result of her would-be hubby had a “very darkish facet” that Anna wasn’t conscious of. Nina can also be awaiting a thanks from Nina for the bother.
In our overview of Tekken 8, we gave the recreation a 9/10, saying, “Tekken 8 is an unimaginable evolution for the sequence, with tons of single participant content material, a wonderful suite of coaching instruments, an awesome on-line expertise, and thrilling new mechanics that make Tekken extra dynamic than ever.”
Isaiah Colbert is a contract author for IGN. You possibly can observe them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.