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During this weekend's Tekken 7 grand finals at EVO, a short video was played showing Solid Snake talking to Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada. Snake belted out, as only Snake could, a line about playing some "good ass Tekken" before the fake feed was cut.
The video was not shown during the livestream, but it was captured by a number of people that were in attendance at the event itself. Initially, many people thought this was a teaser for the legendary soldier, Solid Snake, coming to Tekken. It wouldn't be that unusual if it were to happen. Snake has already appeared in a Smash Bros. game. The Tekken franchise itself is also known for having some bizarre cameos that include Final Fantasy XV's Noctis and Negan from The Walking Dead. But could Snake be next for Tekken's roster?
Well, no. EVO clarified that the video that was shown was not an official tease for anything. It was something that they had taken upon themselves to run without consulting Tekken developer Bandai Namco, or the voice of Solid Snake David Hayter, or even Konami. EVO says that it was just their "idea of a little joke" and apologized for any confusion.
David Hayter, the voice behind the Snake, also took issue with what EVO had done.
How did they get Hayter's voice in the first place? Well, apparently it was recorded for Twitch streamer Mark Julio, @MarkMan23 on Twitter. Julio had used Cameo to get Hayter to provide a couple of lines for use with his Twitch stream as he would be playing Tekken on stream. These lines were shown off by Julio back in March 2019. Cameo is a service where you can pay someone, typically an actor or someone with a famous voice, to say some very specific things for a small bit of money.
Unfortunately for everyone involved in this stunt, the Cameo Terms of Service say that you cannot use any recording for promotional purposes. The video shown at EVO promoting Tekken could very, very easily be considered promotional material. And as this was done only by EVO, the fault lies squarely on their lap.
Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada also voiced his disappointment in a series of tweets today. Harada even went so far as to say that he feels sorry to both Konami and Hideo Kojima, even though he and his team had no hand in this.
In one thoughtless act, EVO somehow managed to upset fans, Katsuhiro Harada, David Hayter, Bandai Namco, Konami, and even Cameo.
On a very related note, Bandai Namco did reveal two new fighters that are actually coming to Tekken 7 this year. Tekken 7 Season Pass 3 will add in Zafina, a "spiritual warrior." She will arrive in September. This Winter will see the addition of a new, original character named Leroy Smith. You can get a little glimpse of these two in the new trailer below.
In any case as a massive Tekken fan who played Zafina a lot in 6 and Tag 2 she looks super cool, especially with Azazel's arm, and Leroy Smith looks pretty cool, i've seen people thinking he'll play like Wang as they have a similar style, but i'm pretty sure he's going to be fresh (side note, all the black characters in Tekken 7 have dreadlocks apparently :P).
Interesting that they didn't announce another guest character like they've done for each season, some people think it's so that they don't steal Soul Calibur's thunder with the Haohmaru announcement. There's still two characters to announce, and if one of them is a guest there's one character in particular who is seeing an ever growing amount of interest in and outside of the community:
She would fit in Tekken extremely well and the timing is perfect, what with her new design for the upcoming remake, it has to happen, i'm not even an FF7 fan and i admit it has to happen.