This Week in Games

Sega Wants More Adaptations And Tekken's New Blood

Congratulations fellow weeabo sailors, you've made it to the weekend. Let's round up some of this week's gaming news.

In an interview with CNBC, Sega chief operating officer Shuji Utsumi said that Sonic the Hedgehog's Hollywood movie success has the company looking into adapting its other famous works into TV shows and films. Two intellectual properties Utsumi earmarked for potential adaptations were Persona and the Yakuza (Like A Dragon) role-playing game series.

“We have other major IPs,” Utsumi told CNBC. “We are thinking of reviving other classical IPs too.”

Yakuza and Persona have been making their fair share of headlines this week. On Wednesday, wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling held a Like A Dragon Gaiden-themed street fight match. The biggest highlights of the match were wrestler Konosuke Takeshita wearing stellar Goro Majima cosplay while hitting dudes in the head with a bicycle and Kōta Ibushi taking a gnarly tombstone piledriver on a ramen shop sign stacked auspiciously on top of a pile of steel chairs. The match was as wild and extreme as any scuffle in Sega's long-running crime drama.

Should we receive (another) live-action Yakuza film, let that AEW match serve as a shining example of how wild its "Heat Actions" should be. Elsewhere, Friday will see the release of Persona 5: Tactica for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch.

This week Bandai Namco revealed its final Tekken 8 character, Reina. Although the pixie-cut martial artist's backstory is shrouded in mystery, her electric moveset strongly suggests she may be another member of the series' ever-expanding Mishima family. Not many characters can do a Demon Breath, God Fist, or vicious stomps to downed opponents with such vitriol if they weren't a part of the dysfunctional Mishima clan. To make matters all the cooler, Reina was designed by Bayonetta character designer Mari Shimazaki. This would explain her nifty purple streetwear and dommy mommy personality.

Years before Reina's announcement, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada posted on his official X (formerly Twitter) account that Heihachi Mishima, the patriarch of the Mishima family, sired 18-25 children worldwide. The dude is a walking Temptation's song. During the EVO Tekken 8 showcase, Harada also confirmed that Heihachi is “completely dead” after his climactic battle with his throwable son Kazuyza in Tekken 7. This effectively quashes any fan theories about Reina being a reincarnation of Heihachi a la M. Bison from Street Fighter—a “Herhachi”, if you will.

Tekken 8 is slated to release on January 26 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Lastly, Atlus released a new character trailer for the upcoming remake Persona 3 Reload. Unlike prior trailers, which highlighted two-legged favorites like Mitsuru Kijiro or Fuuka Yamagishi, this week's trailer gave the best boy Koromaru time in the limelight. Koromaru is a white Shiba Inu who serves as one of the game's loyal party members.

Like his allies, Koromaru can summon his persona (a Cerberus, obviously) with the assistance of his dog collar. I popped off when Koromaru wielded a kunai with his fangs to take down a baddie. He's like a miniature Great Grey Wolf Sif from Dark Souls if he wore an adorable little tactical vest. I will make it my mission to be his favorite human when Persona 3 Reload releases on February 2 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Steam.