During the Tekken World Tour 2023 Global Finals, a significant showcase for the upcoming Tekken 8 revealed the return of Nina Williams, gun-toting assassin and extremely fashionable queen. This bypass, she’s ditched the wedding dress of Tekken 7 for a leather jacket and revealing purple dress combo, complete with thigh-high boots and dual pistols.
Her look is a lot more in line with her classic purple getup, and combines components from all her past outfits. It speaks to her past as deadly killer, and to her previous antics, spoiling her sister Anna’s wedding.
A new trailer also reveals some obvious tweaks and callbacks in her updated moveset. While Nina maintains her submission-focussed and kick-based attacks, she also now incorporates guns into her fighting repertoire.
On high-powered attacks, she'll whip out dual pistols to fireplace at her opponent, and they also appear included in her Rage Art attacks. Having said that, they don’t appear to be high-damage weapons, as even multiple shots won't finish off a rival.
Still, her moves are extremely flashy, and therefore are made all the more intimidating by her powerful and scene-stealing outfit. You can see Nina in action below:
In accessory for revealing Nina, Bandai Namco has additionally unveiled the game’s new Heat System in the Tekken World Tour 2023 Grand Finals. This technique allows fighters to enter an ‘Awakened Mode’ which will provide them with an advantage around the battlefield, and allow these to perform stronger attacks.
The state is only going to serve you for a couple of seconds, but can be extended by successful blows, allowing players to carry on delivering devastating hits as they rail on their opponent.
These attacks may also be aided by a separate Rage System which increases attack power when characters are low on health. Within this state, players will be able to recover health by hitting opponents or forcing them to block, adding a fresh twist to gameplay.
You can easily see these systems in action in the new gameplay mechanics trailer:
Tekken 8 is set to launch for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC later on. It does not possess a firm release date.
