Tekken 8’s final character, Reina, has now been officially unveiled by Bandai Namco Entertainment, and she’s designed by none other than Bayonetta’s incredible character designer, Mari Shimazaki.
While the development team collaborated with Tetsuji Nakano for Reina’s fighting mechanics, the design came from Mari Shimazaki, known for her work on the Bayonetta series at Platinum Games, as well as titles like Okami, Soul Calibur V and No More Heroes 3.
Her concept art for Reina was revealed during the last Tekken Talk, which shows Mari Shimazaki’s signature character art style with a focus on the duality aspect of Reina. She employs both the Mishima fighting style, as well as Taido, both of which are completely different from one another, which is evident by the black and purple in her entire outfit and hairstyle.
Mari Shimazaki previously contributed to Tekken 7 as well and worked on Josie. It’s great to see Tekken 8 work with so many talented artists from across the industry to create some exceptional character designs. Some of these include Jasmin Darnell for Lili’s rendition in Tekken 8 and Hiroaki Hashimoto who designed Hworang.
While 32 characters are coming at launch, I’m interesting in seeing if there will be more collaborations with other artists for any planned DLC characters. It’s a trend I’d like to see employed more for other fighting games as well.
