Harada Explains Why Several LATAM Characters Never Made It Into Tekken

Tekken has historically been known for its faithful representation of various cultures through the characters that come from those regions. The most recent example was Miary Zo, the first character from sub-Saharan Africa, who is a practitioner of Moringy, a cultural fighting style unique to Madagascar.

In a recent exchange on X, Katsuhiro Harada, the former director of Tekken, explained how there were many characters from Latin America they would have added to the game but were held back by constraints, especially time.

A user on X had responded to one of Harada's tweets, stating that they really wished Harada had released a character from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, or Panama while he worked on Tekken.

Harada responded that he actually had a fully fleshed-out character concept from Peru for Tekken 7, but it couldn't happen.

He said:

“Back then, I already had a fully developed concept for a Peruvian character in my mind.

“In fact, timeline-wise, I had originally wanted to introduce that character in 7, but we just couldn’t make it happen in time.

“I also had characters from Bolivia and Colombia on the list of potential candidates.

“We had developed our own kind of “passion index,” which took into account not just raw sales figures, but also the presence and activity of local communities and various other indicators to measure the overall enthusiasm in each region.

“But beyond those numbers, what mattered even more to me was whether I could come up with a character concept that I personally found interesting or compelling. Whether I had an idea that genuinely inspired me, something that made me think, “Wow, it would be exciting if we could actually bring this character to life!”

“That was a pretty important factor in our decision-making.

“(In that sense, I actually had completely different ideas for a French character during the development of 1, 3, 5, and 7. But none of them quite made it into the games, and when we finally introduced a French character in 8, we ended up going with an entirely different concept!)

“We also placed a lot of importance on whether we’d had opportunities to actually visit those countries, learn about their cultures firsthand, meet the local communities, and draw inspiration from those experiences.

“So there were actually quite a few character ideas that never came to fruition simply because the timing didn’t work out.”

Tekken already has a few Latin American characters including Azucena, King I & II, Eddy Gordo, Christie Monteiro, and Katarina Alves.

Some more LATAM characters might still make it into Tekken, but it will certainly not be under Harada's direction. The legendary developer is currently heading VS Studio and is in the process of hopefully crafting another fighting game, following statements he made last week.