Highlights

  • Tekken 8 is the latest installment in the long-running fighting game franchise centered around the Mishima family's intense rivalry and control over the Mishima Zaibatsu corporation.
  • The story revolves around three generations of the Mishima family: Heihachi, Kazuya, and Jin, each with their own struggles and quests for revenge.
  • The upcoming Tekken 8 will feature the final battle between Kazuya and Jin, determining the fate of the world, and marks the start of a new chapter in the franchise.

Brian Cox of Succession fame recently recapped the story of the Tekken games ahead of Tekken 8’s impending release in a new video. The Tekken series of fighting games stretches back to the PlayStation 1 era, and has consisted of eight mainline entries, numerous spin-offs, and a few manga, film, and anime adaptations. The main storyline of Tekken centers around the King of Iron Fist Tournament, a martial arts competition hosted by the sinister Mishima Zaibatsu corporation that grants the winner control of the company, and possibly the fate of the world.

Many fighters have competed in the King of Iron Fist Tournament throughout the Tekken games, but the heart of the series lies in three generations of the feuding Mishima family. It started with Heihachi Mishima, the cruel patriarch of the Mishima clan and leader of Mishima Zaibatsu, and his son Kazuya Mishima, who served as the primary protagonist of the original Tekken and later became a recurring villain himself. 1997’s Tekken 3 saw the introduction of Jin Kazama, Kazuya’s son who inherited his Devil Gene, a genetic abnormality that grants its bearer great demonic powers at the cost of corrupting their mind.

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In a new video posted on the official Bandai Namco Entertainment America YouTube channel, Succession star Brian Cox walks viewers through the long and twisted three-way rivalry between Heihachi, Kazuya, and Jin to help them catch up in time for Tekken 8. Cox describes how Heihachi tossed a five-year-old Kazuya off a cliff as a test for the Devil Gene, which in turn drives Kazuya to seek revenge on his father. The story then shifts to years later, when Heihachi trained his grandson Jin as a means of enacting vengeance against Kazuya, only to betray Jin by shooting him at point-blank range and triggering Jin’s own Devil Gene.

As Brian Cox notes in his narration, this growing war between the three most prominent members of the Mishima family would reach its apex in Tekken 7, which ends with Kazuya defeating his father Heihachi once and for all and poetically tossing his body into a volcano. This leaves Kazuya within arms reach of controlling the world, with a now-recovered Jin being the only person capable of stopping him. This final battle will take place in Tekken 8, which is being hailed as the start of a new chapter in the long-running fighting franchise.

Tekken's Mishima family drama could easily be compared to the story of the dysfunctional Roy family from HBO’s Succession series or William Stryker’s abuse of his mutant son Jason in X2: X-Men United, which makes it all the more fitting for Brian Cox to refresh viewers on the twisted tale of Heihachi, Kazuya, and Jin in the build-up to Tekken 8. Fans won’t have to wait too much longer to see the final battle between the two surviving Mishima warriors, as Tekken 8 launches on January 26 across all current-gen platforms.