Harada Confirms There's No Guest Characters in Tekken 8 Base Roster

Katsuhiro Harada tweeted that Tekken fans should not expect to guest characters in the base roster for the next game.

According to him, in creating Tekken 8, the team focused on developing "default characters" so that players would get a sufficient number of traditional fighters. Whether this means that Akuma does not affect the new game's plot is still an open question:

Tekken 8 is being developed for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The team has kept the release date a secret, but the fighting game may go on sale as early as 2023. 

We know for sure that the following characters will be available as they were already announced and playable during the Tekken 8 Closed Network Test: Kazuya Mishima, Asuka Kazama, Jun Kazama, Jin Kazama, King, Lars Alexandersson, Nina Williams, Paul Phoenix, Marshall Law, Jack-8, Ling Xiaoyu, Leroy Smith, Lili, Hwoarang, Bryan Fury and Claudio Serafino.