If you’ve driven in the US, and especially the South, chances are you’ve seen a significant number of Waffle House along the roads. It’s a classic breakfast spot with a cult blue-collar following, and there’s a slightly romanticised image of it as a late-night hangout where fistfights are common.
This has led fans of both Waffle House and Tekken to beg the series’ helmsman Katsuhiro Harada to add Waffle House as a stage in Tekken 8. Now Harada comments on the matter via X, where he writes that he “fully understands your (you guys) request” and says that he tried to contact the chain in several ways.
But… according to Harada, they have not even responded at all:
“Over the past year or more, I’ve actually tried to make contact through several different channels. However, and this is purely my own speculation, I suspect that the lack of response may be due to the fact that the project I’m known for revolves around “fighting-themed video games. (by the way, no response = very rare case).”
That said, hope is not lost, and he consults with his community to see if using an alternative name for Waffle House and slightly redesigning it to avoid rights issues would be an acceptable compromise.
What do you say, would it be fun to fight in a thoroughly Americana setting at a Waffle House, perhaps late at night with plenty of pickup trucks parked around and overly-invigorated Southerners cheering on the fight