Summary
Tekkenseries director Katsuhiro Harada haspreviously saidthat he’d love to get Colonel Sanders in the series as a guest fighter. Now, it turns out that he actually pursued this, only to be shot down by both his own bosses and KFC itself.
This comes from an interview with TheGamer’s Axel Bosso, who sat down with the Tekken boss as well as the game designer, Michael Murray. Here, the pair explain why it’s difficult to get brands to agree to these collaboration ideas - and why that means we probably won’t get a Waffle House stage either.
No, Colonel Sanders Won’t Be Joining Tekken 8 Anytime Soon
“A long time ago, I wanted to have Colonel Sanders from Kentucky Fried Chicken fight,” says Harada. “So, I asked to use Colonel Sanders and go to the head office in Japan.”
Harada says he was given a “bad look”, and the idea was shot down. He didn’t try to fight it, so don’t expect Colonel Sanders to appear inTekken 8anytime soon.
Murray goes into a bit more detail on how this played out.
“[Harada] went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and tried to get Colonel Sanders. […] they weren’t very open to the idea,” he says. “[Colonel Sanders] appeared in games after that. So maybe it was just him fighting against someone [that] was posing a problem for them. But it just goes to show how difficult these types of discussions are.”
Naturally, KFC has its branding to think about. With that said,the company did allow its mascot to star in a dating simulator, so a fighting game doesn’t seem too wild in comparison.
Unfortunately, the initial refusal means that Harada isn’t confident that we’ll get the Waffle House stage that fans were asking for. “It’s not something that we can accomplish on our own,” he says, reminding fans that he can’t just add this into the game without working with the company. Oh well, I suppose this is what mods are for…
Tekken 8
WHERE TO PLAY
Tekken 8 is the next-gen evolution of the long-running fighting game series from Bandai Namco. It brings back several popular characters and adds new, while it also introduces the new ‘Heat’ mechanic.
