If it wasn’t for an upset Uber driver, Donald Trump might’ve been throwing combos in Tekken.
Part of the fun of the Tekken games, is that there are so many different types of fighters, from serious boss-man Jin Kazama to Panda, the… giant panda. Tekken 7 launched with a whopping 36 characters in 2017, but it could’ve been 37 if the original plan to include Donald Trump went ahead.
This was revealed after Tekken streamer LevelUpYourGame posted a video of himself on Twitter, where he pretended to be a new character in the game, under the name ‘Law Of America’.
This got the attention of Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada, who shared a story of just how close we were to seeing former US president Trump as a playable character in Tekken 7.
A commentor joked that they thought Law Of America was Trump’s reveal as a Tekken 8 character, but they didn’t realise how close to the truth they were.
Harada shared the story of when he and Tekken producer Michael Murray were in the US, when Trump won the election in 2016, and started talking about putting him in the game.
‘If I recall correctly, there is no licensing fee for making character goods or games about the President of the United States, is there? There’s a lot of buzz around it, so why don’t we put him in the game?’ Harada said to Murray.
‘Michael and I had a blast talking about Trump’s fighting style and the Rage Arts idea for a moment.’
Harada shelved the idea of Tekken Trump, however, but not because it wouldn’t be funny.
‘Then [I] cooled down and sealed the idea. Why did I seal that idea? Because the driver of the Uber we were in at the time started blasting off at 200 kph (125 mph) while calling out: ‘F*** Donald Trump’.
“Law of America”
I thought Donald Trump was joining Tekken 8— HelloTeddy (@littleteddy1235) December 9, 2023
Me and Michael Murray were in San Francisco the night Donald Trump won the presidential election. I remember I asked him(Michael),
“If I recall correctly, there is no licensing fee for making character goods or games about the President of the United States, is there? There’s a… https://t.co/y5yEwrGej7
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) December 9, 2023
Harada didn’t specify which game in the Tekken series they considered adding Trump to, but Trump won the US election in 2016, and Tekken 7 was released on consoles in 2017.
In a parallel universe where Harada and Murray took a long walk instead l would have mained Trump… crazy.
— Pilsudski Tekken (@PipeBenderFC) December 9, 2023
Unfortunately Harada didn’t go into detail about what fighting moves they were discussing for Trump either. If he’d be a grappler or an all-out fighter, we’ll never know.
And that’s probably for the best.
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