Final Fantasy 15's Noctis to join the cast of Tekken 7 as DLC
FF15's protagonist is racking up fighting game experience.
Maybe it's practice for his appearance in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, Final Fantasy's own take on the fighting game genre, but FF15 protagonist Noctis Lucis Caelum is going to be getting a bit of fighting game practice alongside the masters - he's joining the cast of Tekken 7.
Bandai Namco's fighter is of course no stranger to guest characters - Street Fighter mainstay Akuma has been in the game since launch and even featured as a pivotal character in Tekken 7's story, while Fatal Fury/King of Fighters favourite Geese Howard was announced as a Tekken 7 DLC character at EVO earlier this year.
Noctis still marks a shift, of course, since he's the first guest character to come from outside the fighter genre. He comes packing many moves that look familiar to FF15 with warp strike enabled teleporting and sword switching, plus a new FF15-themed stage set at the game's Hammerhead garage location. Chocobos, Cindy and the rest of the main FF15 party appear as background characters.
The news appears to be going over well, although many fans are expressing disappointment that Yakuza's Kiryu isn't the latest guest character. Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada ran an online poll to see what character fans would like to see and Kiryu won by a landslide, but is beaten to the punch (ha ha) by Noctis instead.
In other areas of news, Bandai Namco also confirmed they'll be updating the game to the latest version of Unreal Engine in order to reduce input lag, and they hope to get that patch out before the end of the year.
This announcement comes just days after Netherrealm Studios announced the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be showing up in Injustice 2, too. Final Fantasy is no stranger to that guest character in a fighter thing, either - FF7's Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa, Vincent, Yuffie and Zack all showed up in Square and Namco collaboration Ehrgeiz back on the PS1, and Cloud also joined Smash Bros. just a few years ago.
Fighting games are all over that guest character thing right now - except for Street Fighter 5, which added five all-new characters this year and is gearing up for a Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition, a much-needed rerelease. It's a good time to like fighting games, indeed...