Bryan Fury is the latest character to join the roster of Tekken 8, but his announcement was far from smooth sailing. Rather than being posted to social media as previous roster debuts have, the announcement for Fury was intended to launch as part of a tournament held over the weekend but resulted in the character being essentially announced twice.
As reported by VCG, the original announcement for Fury’s debut was intended for launch during this weekend’s Combo Breaker fighting tournament, but the trailer hit an official Instagram account before intended and remained live for enough time for the content to begin circulating across social media and YouTube before it was eventually taken down from Instagram.
In direct response to the leak, Tekken 8’s series director Katsuhiro Harada pointed the blame at Bandai Namco’s European arm in a now-deleted tweet, stating “That’s why I warned you years ago not to post on a timer. Well, I’m going home now, thanks! Ha ha ha.”
In addition, Tekken 8 producer Michael Murray also took to Twitter to apologize to those who saw the trailer in advance, alongside apologizing to the developers behind the creation of the trailer.
I apologize to the fans who saw that particular thing in not the way @Harada_TEKKEN and I had wanted it to happen. I feel bad for all you guys and also the dev team who gave up weekends to work on it :(May 28, 2023
However, now the trailer is officially out for the new fighter, we can take a look at what Bryan Fury will bring to the ring, and he seems far more brutal and fast-paced than in previous games.
Tagged as “A wild card for violence and destruction,” it's no surprise that Fury’s moveset is built around fast, hard-hitting mechanics, with obvious hints of his cybernetic enhancements through his brand-new rage art and combat animations.
There are some obvious changes to his appearance, too, once again reinforcing the idea of him being a psychotic cyborg, such as a newly implemented cybernetic eye that locks onto the target before landing a flying punch.
There’s a clear emphasis on each character's history in Tekken 8, as shown through their moveset and animation, and Bryan Fury is a welcomed addition to the mix regardless of how many times he gets announced. Bringing the confirmed roster up to a total of 15 characters, there are still a few fan-favorite characters we are yet to see, but with no concrete release date, we’ll just have to wait and see who’s next.
