Once upon a time, a magical collaboration between a fighting game franchise and worldwide fast food mascot almost took place, until a fried chicken conglomerate got in the way. I'm of course talking about Tekken and its director Katsuhiro Harada's attempt to bring KFC mascot Colonel Sanders on as a guest fighter. So much potential in that pairing, but it wasn't meant to be.
In an interview with TheGamer, Harada briefly told the story of reaching out to KFC during development of an unspecified Tekken game.
"A long time ago, I wanted to have Colonel Sanders from Kentucky Fried Chicken fight," Harada said. "So, I asked to use Colonel Sanders and go to the head office in Japan." Harada said he traveled to KFC headquarters, received a "bad look", and was shot down.
In the same TheGamer interview, Tekken 8 game designer Michael Murray expanded on why the fried chicken restaurant, which has a large physical and cultural presence in Japan, might not have been willing to work with them.
"[Colonel Sanders] appeared in games after that. So maybe it was just him fighting against someone [that] was posing a problem for them," Murray said. "But it just goes to show how difficult these types of discussions are."
One Sanders game Murray was probably referring to is I Love You, Colonel Sanders!, the official KFC dating sim/adver-game the company released for free in 2019. I share Murray's confusion: Fawning over and smooching Colonel Sanders is on the table, but trading blows with Heihachi Mishima is a bridge too far? I hate to give a hat tip to Burger King—objectively the worst burger in fast food—but at least when that franchise decided to spend some marketing dollars turning its mascot into a videogame star, the Sneak King didn't screw around.
Maybe Harada was dealing with an older, less-enlightened chicken regime at the time, but it sounds like the creative director doesn't plan on trying again. KFC's loss.
