Look, if it were within my power, this article would consist of nothing but a stitched-together, ten-hour video of BAFTA-winning actor Brian Cox saying “what the hell’s a Devil Gene?” over and over again.
Alas, they pay me to write things. So, it’s with equal parts befuddlement and joy that I tell you that the latest stage in Bandai Namco’s marketing campaign for Tekken 8 is a lore video featuring none other than Logan Roy himself.
Titled “‘Story so Far’ with Brian Cox,” the video is a rundown of 30 years of Tekken in Cox’s trademark smoky brogue. Detailing the conflict between three generations of the Mishima family, Cox—a classically trained Shakespearean actor—seems to find genuine glee in describing the various cliffs from which various members of the Tekken series have thrown each other during the last three decades.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making fun. At least, not in a mean-spirited way. While the trailer originally felt to me like two profoundly different universes colliding, I have to admit that hiring the guy who played the Roy clan patriarch to narrate a complex tale of patricide, filicide, and general interfamilial backstabbing actually makes 100% perfect sense. Heck, come to think of it, it fits in with all those years performing Shakespeare, too.
It’s also, I have to admit, actually kind of useful. I am far from up to date on my Tekken lore, and I walked away from Cox’s plane-hopping PowerPoint presentation feeling like I actually had a better grasp on what the hell is going on in these games in the modern age. I also feel like I better understand what the hell a Devil Gene is, and I hope Cox does too.
Anyway, I recommend giving it a watch, if only to see Cox, backgrounded by screens showing various Tekken figures and the most powerful set of thighs in the world, explain to you that, “knowing Jin possessed the Devil Gene, Heihachi would use Jin until ultimately betraying his grandson, shooting him at point-blank range in the face.”
You never really appreciate the gravitas of the Tekken storyline until it’s described to you in tones usually reserved to perform Titus Andronicus.