With Akuma in the Tekken 7 roster, anticipation grew for additional character crossing over from other franchises. In the upcoming DLC for the recently released fighting game, developers Bandai Namco is giving us one SNK’s iconic fighters in Geese Howard, who is featured in the Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series. We got hands-on time with an early version of Geese Howard to get a feel for his move set and how he matches up with other Tekken characters.
Fans of SNK fighting games will recognize Geese’s stage and music, which was specifically made for this DLC. We spoke with Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada and game designer/translator Michael Murray, who said „All of it is kind of like a tribute to the Fatal Fury series, and so we really recreated the feeling of the character. But at the same time arranging him to make him have that Tekken flair to him.“ When asked how the team landed of Geese Howard for the game’s roster, Harada-san and Murray told us the story:
„In a past interview when we were still creating Tekken 7, we were often asked characters we like from other franchises. We all often answered that we love Samurai Shodown, and also Geese [from Fatal Fury]. He’s just an incredible villain that both of us really love, and the fans caught on to that interview, and they were like, ‚Wow, I love Geese, too. He would be so cool in a Tekken game!‘ And it turns out that the SNK team actually saw that, and they approached us and said, ‚Hey, you know the Geese thing? Is there anyway that we could make this happen?‘ So they actually approached us, which made it a lot easier, and so it was quite smooth.
Stay tuned for our full interview with Harada-san and Murray later this week where we talk Tekken World Tour, how characters are created for the series, and whether or not they’ve been thinking of a Nintendo Switch version. The Tekken World Finals are happening today, November 12, for the first time outside of Japan, in San Francisco, CA; the top 16 Tekken players battle for $50,000 prize and the competition is streaming on the official Tekken Twitch channel.
Tekken 7 is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC and the Geese Howard DLC is set to release sometime in December 2017. Be sure to read our Tekken 7 review in which GameSpot’s own Peter Brown awarded it an 8/10 and stated, „While some of this depth will be lost or out of reach for newcomers, there’s enough fun to be had outside of hardcore competition to keep players from all walks of gaming thoroughly entertained.“
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