A new "Tekken 7: Fated Retribution" trailer was launched at Gamescom 2016 yesterday, along with a couple of revelations about Bandai Namco’s fighting video game. The highlights at Bandai Namco's event for the game are the return of Lee Chaolan and his alter-ego Violet, the appearance of young Heihachi and kid Kazuya on the story mode, new story arcs, the introduction of a group of exorcists and producer-director Katsuhiro Harada’s response to criticisms of the game’s alleged oversexualized depictions of women.

1. The Return of Lee Chaolan/Violet

At Gamescom 2016, the return of Lee Chaolan and Violet was announced by Bandai Namco Entertainment through a special trailer that gives a glimpse of Lee and Violet back in action. Their return to the King of Iron Fist Tournament was also announced on Bandai Namco Entertainment’s official site. Lee and Violet’s return is actually part of the bigger storyline that should pan out on "Fated Retribution's" gameplay, which according to the developer is going to be long.

Based on the description of the story mode, it already appears that Lee will be part of the central moving force of the story, since the game will be told on the Mishima clan’s point-of-view. The story mode delves deep into what took place when Lee was adopted by Heihachi Mishima to be the adoptive brother of Kazuya and what happened when Lee was expelled from the Mishima Zaibatsu for unknown reasons.

2. Kid Kazuya and Young Heihachi

Since the story mode will center on the Mishima clan, fans will get to see a young Heihachi and kid Kazuya. Based on the screenshots obtained by Event Hubs, its seems that Kazuya’s training under the tutelage of Heihachi will be featured in the game. Both younger versions of Kazuya and Heihachi are fully playable, but it remains to be seen if these versions of the characters will remain the same outside of story mode. What’s only clear is that on the story mode, Lee is going to be quite eager to exact revenge on both Heihachi and Kazuya and he is going to use Lars Alexandersson as an instrument in his cry for vengeance.

3. More Story Arcs

Aside from the story mode that is presented in the Mishima clan’s POV, players are also provided with other story arcs to explore in “Tekken 7: Fated Retribution.” Bandai Namco stated that other arcs will involve fighters that are not related to the Mishima saga, citing Claudio Serafino and his group of exorcists as an example.

4. The Archers of Sirius

Although Claudio Serafino and his group have their own story arc in “Tekken 7: Fated Retribution,” they are also involved in the storyline featuring the Mishima Zaibatsu. According to the information provided by Bandai Namco on its site, the supernatural group of exorcists will be approached by the Mishima Zaibatsu to be part of the conglomerate. Initially, the de facto leader of the secretive organization will refuse, but the Mishima Zaibatsu will not take no for an answer. This will lead Claudio to keep tabs on the conglomerate and try to uncover the Mishima Zaibatsu’s real motives.

5. Response to Critics

Though not really part of “Tekken 7: Fated Retribution” per se, the final entry bears an important message on how chief producer and director Katsuhiro Harada thinks of the criticisms being thrown at the game for its alleged oversexualized depictions of women. Talking to EuroGamer at Gamescom 2016, Harada gave his two cents on how the Western market tends to be sensitive to the costumes of the female characters in the game series.

“It is more difficult creating the game for a mass market. But I guess one of the things that’s most frustrating is just that a lot of these criticisms are very ill-informed… What they don’t know is that it started off in the arcade and it’s a season line, like you do for Christmas, Halloween or whatever. And it's not just the women. Robots have them, Kuma, Panda, the male characters have swimwear. It's not like we're trying to sexualise the female characters at all, Harada said.

Senior game designer Michael Murray admitted that the sensibilities do affect how they conceptualize and come up with new content for the franchise. "It does affect how we announce new content, because we have to think, when we release this, we're not there to explain this, so people can take it as it is, or how they interpret it,” Murray said.

Bandai Namco Entertainment launched the “Tekken 7: Fated Retribution” arcade update to the Japanese market on July 5. The update will be the basis of the game’s U.S. release on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and the PC in early 2017, AnimeNewsNetwork reported.

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