Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken 8's director and producer, recently commented on Eliza from Tekken 7 and Tekken Revolution, saying difficulties with the character make it unlikely for her to come back despite her popularity. Tekken 8 is the latest entry in Bandai Namco's long-running fighting game franchise, bringing the game to the latest generation of consoles. The roster of Tekken 8 includes a healthy mix of newcomers, like Reina, Victor, and Azucena, alongside returning fan favorites like Xiaoyu and Jin.

Tekken 8 is also releasing a set of DLC fighters, with four characters being added throughout 2024. Three fighters have already been released, all of them being returning characters from the series' history; Eddy Gordo, Lidia Sobieska, and Heihachi Mishima. Tekken 8's fourth DLC fighter will be added this winter, with most theories or leaks floating around it being another returning character like Marduk or Fahkumram. While fans are eagerly anticipating who will be the next DLC character, Katsuhiro Harada recently responded to one fan's potential pick, Eliza, saying she's unlikely to return.

Harada is usually quite active on Twitter, responding to fans, addressing certain rumors, or sharing some details about Tekken's development to clarify things. One subject that came up was the potential return of Eliza, a female vampire who made her playable debut in Tekken Revolution, before being added as a DLC fighter to Tekken 7's roster. While Harada considered Eliza a personal favorite, she was very difficult to balance.

She is a slightly unusual character among those I have created so far.
She was my favorite character too, but the battle tuning staff had a lot of trouble with her in TEKKEN 7.
Changing her stats even a little bit would make her too strong or too weak, so she was very difficult… https://t.co/XfUR57MZ0u

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) November 19, 2024

Harada says that the battle tuning staff had a lot of trouble balancing her since changing any of her stats by even a little bit would end up making her too strong or too weak, making it an arduous process to fine-tune her. The amount of complaints that Eliza received from tournament players also made Harada consider it not to be worthwhile as well. While many fans on Twitter were glad to see some insight into the game, many were also sad to hear that Eliza will unlikely be returning to Tekken any time soon.



Tekken 7's version of Eliza was added to the roster as part of a poll deciding on who to include in the game. Eliza's playstyle in Tekken 7 made her a high-execution character with the ability to regain health due to her vampire powers. While many players loved to use Eliza, fighting against her was a nightmare for a variety of reasons, such as smaller hurtboxes making certain attacks and combos simply miss against her, along with mechanics that just gave her a straight advantage against the other members of the cast. As such, it's understandable why Harada and the developers would be reluctant to re-introduce Eliza to Tekken 8.

Posted: 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
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Source: https://gamerant.com/tekken-8-director-tekken-7-character-eliza-wont-return-dlc/