Tekken 8Executive Producer Katsuhiro Harada has been a little baffled lately by a certain string of requests coming from fans. The enigmatic game designer has had a hand in every Tekken game and is a pretty prolific gaming figure on social media, not afraid toguide players towards his vision, deal directly with his fans' criticism or evensend it right back to them tenfold.
But one common request that’s left him confused is that a lot of players, presumably from the U.S. market, have been asking him to add American restaurant chain Waffle House as a playable stage in the game. And what’s more, he seems to be entertaining the idea.
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Keeping memories alive.
Good Food, Good Folks, Good Fights
For those not in the know, Waffle House is a chain of diners where the serving staff whip up traditional American breakfast food at all hours of the day right before customers' eyes, most notably, their waffles and loaded hash browns. There are more than 1,900 Waffle House locations, although they’re most prevalent in the southern and midwestern United States. The restautrant hasmade its way into other gamesthanks to modders, but we don’t think there’s ever been an actualt in-game Waffle house planned out by any devs.
But while the food at Waffle House is a draw, it’s also earned a bit of a reputation — especially in the online age — of being the type of place where you might want to watch your step at certain times of the day. Since Waffle House restaurants tend towards being open 24 hours a day, there are plenty of stories and videos of late night drunken brawls in and around Waffle House properties. What’s more, Waffle House employees don’t seem like the type to just let bad behavior slide, and there’s been plenty of evidence that they’re willing to defend themselves.Here’s how one person on X (formerly Twitter) had to respond to Harada’s question:
Is Harada Actually Considering This?
With all of that in mind, Harada made another post responding to all the replies, and it seems like he may be willing to get onboard — that is, he’s game if Waffle House is. Harada made it seem as though a joint cooperation between Tekken and Waffle house is pretty unlikely, but what’s more impressive, it sounds like he’s actually going to try to make it happen. “The restaurant has both the trademark and the rights to the restaurant, so if the restaurant chain’s headquarters refuses to accept my proposal, it will not happen.”
Did you catch that caveat? “… if the restaurant chain’s headquarters refuses to accept my proposal”. That certainly makes it sound like Harada intends to pitch the idea to the restaurant chain’s Georgia-baseed corporate offices.
While deals are becoming a lot more common between video games and eating establishments — consider Happy Meals, if you will — this one carries a bit of a negative connotation to it, as Waffle House may not want to embrace the fight culture that the Internet has been building around it. Still, they say no publicity is bad publicity, and even if Waffle Hosue won’t agree to let their restaurants be featured as an in-game fighting location, a lot of players have pointed out that there’s always room for a parody restaurant to make its way into the game. Looks like we’ll just have to wait and see what Harada’s cooking up (although we certainly wouldn’t say no toseeing Reina kicking buttin a Waffle House uniform).
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