Bandai Namco has released a new Tekken 8 gameplay trailer, spotlighting the Desert Falcon himself, Shaheen.
Ahead of the game’s impending release on January 26th, the Shaheen trailer pits the military specialist against Claudio, the leader of the Archers of Sirius.
As you might imagine, Shaheen makes quick work of Claudio using his technical fighting style, and he’s then pitted against the Cold-Blooded Oppressor himself, Kazuya Mishima.
He’s looking for information about the death of his friend Salim, for which the G Corporation (currently led by the aforementioned Kazuya Mishima) is apparently responsible.
Shaheen then uses his graceful acrobatics to battle Kazuya, and since this is Shaheen’s trailer, it’s no spoiler to say that the Desert Falcon emerges victorious.
We get a glimpse of Shaheen’s Rage Art in this trailer, too. It’s a brutal-looking move in which he surfs his opponent across the ground, then delivers a flying kick as the coup de grace.
At the trailer’s conclusion, Shaheen wields Salim’s treasured blade and promises to avenge his friend. It’s a fitting reintroduction to a character who only made his first appearance in Tekken 7.
Shaheen is just one of a number of returning fighters joining the Tekken 8 roster. Others include the weird warrior Yoshimitsu, the British boxer Steve Fox, and the positively creepy Spetsnaz agent Sergei Dragunov.
The game will also see the introduction of several new characters, including agent Victor Chevalier, mysterious student Reina, and Peruvian coffee enthusiast Azucena Ortiz.
You’ll get to see many of these characters, as well as lots of others, cross paths in Tekken 8‘s climactic story mode, which will see the long-running Mishima-Kazama family saga come to a head.
Tekken 8 is set to launch for PC via Steam, as well as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, on January 26th.
You can check out our previews of the game right here and here, and you can read our interview with director Kohei Ikeda and producer Michael Murray here.
