Today’s Nintendo Direct presentation during E3 2021 held a lot of surprises, opening with a mysterious figure tossing Ganondorf into a volcano (yes, that happened). Instead of what many of us believed was something new involving Ocarina of Time, it was revealed that Kazuya Mishima of the Tekken series is joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the next DLC character.
Kazuya brings an arsenal of his hand-to-hand combat moves adapted from Tekken, including the Tsunami Kick (similar to Ryu/Ken’s), Tombstone Crusher, and the Demon God Fist. What sets him apart from other fighting franchise characters in the Smash roster is his ability to transform into Devil Gene Kazuya, which appears to give Kazuya a power boost to some of his moves. It’s unclear at this point the conditions in which Devil Gene Kazuya will make his appearance during a match. The “toss everyone into the volcano” bit is a nod to Heihachi Mishima throughout the series, and Kazuya doing the same in later scenes in Tekken and Tekken 7.
There is no word yet on Kazuya’s release date, though Nintendo’s official Super Smash Bros. site notes he is “coming soon.” A new stage and new music will be included as well, which will likely be detailed when the character demo is shown on June 28. Kazuya takes the fifth fighter slot in Fighters Pass Vol. 2 (the 11th DLC character overall) and is the 81st playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He is the second representation for Bandai-Namco (Pac-Man being the first).
