Over the weekend, the fighting game community has been smoldering a raging campaign demanding the return of the Waffle House stage to the upcoming Tekken 8 directed by Katsuhiro Harada who is famous for creating Tekken franchise. The modest request, a Twitter user’s initial post, quickly grew into a global movement, and thus the need for this unconventional shop to be included in the series was reflected.
The urge for a fair arena
The location in the realm of fighting games plays an essential role in making the players’ experience truly exciting. Without a doubt, beautiful scenery and famous landmarks do grab one’s attention. Yet, it is usually the most unusual and offbeat surroundings that fascinate us the most. There are mostly aspects of practicality and atmosphere that need to be taken into account since that ideal combat spot has to exist between the public view and the scope of it all.
Waffle House urban legend
Enter Waffle House, a Southern comfort food chain celebrated for its sticky waffles as well as its messy clashes, that occur, in here. Videos showing this type of violence have gone viral on the internet, seemingly creating a new tradition of fighting on impulse at the Waffle House. The staff, all of them with a no-nonsense mannerism, have become partly responsible for this widespread opinion, due to their participation.
A hashtag shouting on Twitter starts a campaign.
The trigger of the Waffle House stage campaign is a tweet addressed to Katsuhiro Harada and, as a proof of concept, attached is a photorealistic visual for the stage. Emphasizing the importance of context, Harada questioned the matter and immediately had a wave of proposals, memes, and videos from those who wanted to elaborate on this atypical milieu of the game flooding in.
From Memes to real life.
Harada exhibited at first a skeptical attitude towards the concept, still, he admitted there could be hurdles on the way to getting the rights from Waffle House’s headquarters. The staff of the establishment is likely good at dealing with physical altercations but the issue of corporate approval of the brand being associated with virtual violence remains a question.
The path forward
As the debate goes on, proposals have come forward to add the Birdie Waffle House to the game paying homage to the community’s ardent lobbying which simultaneously overcomes the legal hurdles. Through a stage that honors the American icon, Tekken 8 could take the gaming experience to the next level by capturing the eccentric spirit and the appeals of a very American establishment.
The heated demand for a Waffle House stage in Tekken 8 aptly demonstrates the burgeoning creativity and the engaged involvement of the gaming community. While the fans still hope for more news to come, the idea of throwing each other around between the syrup and the waffle crumbs is just another layer of the already high level of anticipation of the upcoming release. Whether this vision becomes a reality is still unknown, however, the journey has already made a permanent mark on the gaming culture.
