Tekken 8 is bringing back a character who first appeared in the previous game: the exorcist warrior Claudio Serafino. After seven years of fan speculation, Bandai Namco formally announced the next installment of its hard-hitting 3D fighting franchise during the EVO 2022 event last September. Since then, series director Katsuhiro Harada has promised that Tekken 8 will be much more aggressive than past entries thanks to its new "Heat" gauge system.
Of course, no good fighting game is complete without an eclectic roster of playable characters, and the team behind Tekken 8 has already confirmed that several fan-favorite warriors will be returning for this latest round of combat. The dysfunctional father-son pair of Kazuya Mishima and Jin Kazama was announced not long after Tekken 8 itself, and Bandai Namco has been slowly unveiling more fighters over the past few months through dedicated gameplay trailers that highlight each combatant’s specific moveset.
One more returning character has now been added to the list of Tekken 8 fighters: Claudio Serafino. The latest Tekken 8 character trailer was recently posted to YouTube and features Claudio unleashing his divine power upon the masked luchador King and undead Tekken mercenary Bryan Fury in two separate match-ups. After pummeling King into submission with a brutal combo of supernaturally-enhanced blows, Claudio finishes Fury off with his Special Move, in which he fires an arrow of light into his opponent at point-blank range.
Claudio Serafino is a relative newcomer to the world of Tekken, having only debuted in 2017’s Tekken 7. There, he was introduced as the leader of the Archers of Sirius, an ancient order of exorcists tasked with banishing supernatural threats for hundreds of years. During Tekken 7’s story, Claudio is forced to join the nefarious Heihachi Mishima, who needed his help in defeating Kazuya Mishima's Devil Gene form. In battle, Claudio calls upon the Sirius-Style Exorcism Sorcery fighting style to battle against the forces of darkness, which are in plentiful supply in the war-torn Tekken universe.
Players will get to unleash Claudio Serafino’s demon-busting power all over again in Tekken 8, now that the Italian exorcist has been confirmed as a playable character. There is still no official release date set for Tekken 8, so there is still plenty of time for Bandai Namco to announce even more returning combatants from across the Tekken franchise’s long history.
Tekken 8 is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
