Here's Brian Cox Telling Us the Story Of the 'Tekken' Series, Just Because

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | January 10, 2024 |

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | January 10, 2024 |

I grew up playing the Tekken games, and while a number of the entries in the series are some of the best fighting games of all time (especially Tekken 3—oh the hours I lost to perfecting Yoshimitsu’s absolutely bonkers moves in Tekken 3), nobody would go to bat for their storylines.

Then again, it’s not exactly common for fighting games to focus much on their narratives. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single one that takes storytelling seriously. But then that’s part of the charm, and the fighting games that recognise that the more fun you have with your ludicrous back stories and various interconnected soap operas of the characters that want more than anything to solve their problems by beating the snot out of others, the better!

Speaking of soap operas: Developer Bandai Namco Studios Arika is currently poised to release Tekken 8, and as part of their promotional campaign they’ve concocted one of the least expected—but certainly most welcome!—ads, maybe of all time. They said: ‘Hey, Brian Cox, would you like to stand in front of some video game-y green screen and recap the bonkers story of Tekken for us, please? There’s loads of instances of fathers throwing sons into volcanos and off cliffs, and vice versa!’ And I’m really glad they did. And I’m even more glad he said yes.