Call of Duty, Battlefield, StarCraft, Farming Simulator and Warhammer are but a few of the established videogames series that animal rights organisation PETA has complained about over the years. It now seems Tekken can join that list too.
While Tekken 7 landed in Japan over two years ago, the seventh main series entry to Bandai Namco's esteemed fight 'em up—the first to feature on PC—is due this June on western shores. When it arrives, it'll come minus Roger Jr—the boxing kangaroo who replaced his similarly disciplined reptilian family friend Alex from Tekken 5 onward.
Speaking to VG24/7 at a press event, executive producer Katsuhiro Harada explained why this is.
"There was a video of a man’s dog being headlocked by a kangaroo, and he punched it in the face. It turned into a big problem," says Harada. "People were complaining about him punching a kangaroo. It seems that in the last few years there’s a lot more animal activists—even though they probably wouldn’t play our game they would still hear about that, about a kangaroo in our game being punched, and would complain about it."
Despite the fact Roger Jr's fighting macropod father Roger has featured in the Tekken series since its second '96 outing, Kuma the bear will appear in Tekken 7 all the same as it is "obviously stronger than a human being", so suggests Harada.
Tekken 7 is due on PC on June 2, 2017, and will come with 38 playable fighters despite Roger Jr's removal.
