Tekken 7: New Character Shaheen Hails From Saudi Arabia, Looks Curiously Familiar

It's hard not to see an overly attractive viral man from two years ago in this new cg art.

[Whitefeather]

Actually it's seems more like you've only seen one Arab man and just put the two together. In the gulf this guy looks like almost every young man and that's what he's supposed to represent.

[NewMonday]

the devs discussed developing this charterer with fans months ago and took feedback, glad they actually did it.

[Whitefeather]

Yeah I gave like a paragraph of feedback. I just found it funny this website said it's based on that guy.

[aCasualGamer]

Namco Bandai did this right. Created a character for a certain demographic with respect and involved the demographic feedback.

[MegaRay]

Interesting character, looking forward to play as him. (Hope his fighting style is as interesting)

[Hoffmann]

I have never seen so much mainly negative reactions to new Tekken characters than this time. In fighting game communities people call them boring, generic, streotype as fuck or a new low (Chloe).

As a Tekken player since 1995 I am a big dissapointed so far too. The game itself will still be awesome for sure but so far Mortal Kombat X looks tons more interesting.

[Inception]

"so far Mortal Kombat X looks tons more interesting"

Oh yeah because Sub-zero and Scorpion didn't look like generic ninja number 10 but with steroid. Or Cassie Cage who just Sonya Blade with different skin and 'Cage' in her name to show that she's a daughter of Sonya and Johnny? Lol. Just wait when they show more ninja clones like Ermac, Noob Saibot, Smoke, Reptile, etc. Or Kitana clones like Mileena and Jade along with their big boobies. I expect you will say them genereic, boring, or stereotype just like you said generic, boring, or stereotype to Tekken 7 characters.

[Hoffmann]

I was clearly talking about new character designs.

D'Vorah, Ferra & Torr and Kotal Kahn look a lot more interesting and new than the new T7 guys.
Cassie Cage looks like a merge with new things between Cage and Sonya.

And clones? The last time they were those was back in 1997 in Mortal Kombat 4.

[thelwebb100]

I don't know why people thumbed you down. I agree as well, I'm a long time fan of the series since Tekken 2 and I wish they'd just reboot the series. The Tekken series has gotten way to gimmicky now, Mortal Kombat X looks much better.

[Hoffmann]

Maybe the disagreeing people misunderstood me like the guy who mentioned MK clones and thought I meant MK designs in general being better or something. Or younger players who don't know Tekken as long as us just disagree and like the new designs. Whatever.

[q8kik]

I agree that MK looks better aesthetically but, gameplay wise it pales when compared to Tekken.

[Hoffmann]

TTT2 is my favourite fighting game since it was released in September 2012 for consoles. Am still playing it almost every week but MKX with all those variations stuff there looks really great as well.

Am glad that both series continue to be a thing. As a fighting gamer I saw tooo many series being more or less dead since years now.

[Hoffmann]

*bit not big

[Griever]

Shaheen??? But that is a female name! It means eagle and eagle is considered female so people name their girls as Shaheen. They should have done a little more research before naming the character.

[Enmson]

Not really, there are men called Shaheen but the name is not really a big problem.

[NewMonday]

Shaheen is also a family name to many, mostly in Egypt.

[Whitefeather]

Where the hell are you from? It's a man's name.

[Genuine-User]

Shaheen is a female name in countries like Pakistan and India,
Is it s universal name in the Arab world?

[turab]

Its a male name. source: me am arab.

[Whitefeather]

Shaheen is a male word. In Arabic there is male and female words. Shaheen is male, the female version would ne Shaheena. Pakistan and India are NOT Arabic countries, if they do name that for girls they're naming them with male names.

[Genuine-User]

@ Whitefeather

When did I say they were Arab countries?
The majority of Pakistani names are derived from Arabic, Turkish, and Persian names. Local Tribal and family names are also widely used.
There is a phonetic/linguistic difference between male and female names in Urdu, both Shaheen and Shaheena are part of the female semantis.
The Arab world and Pakistan/india/Bangladesh are right in using the name for either gendre.

[q8kik]

Shaheen is not a female name in arabic

as it is a masculine name in the arabic language .

Few of my relatives are named Shaheen which means Falcon.

[Sarah_Ch]

Actually Shaheen is a Persian name origin which refer to peregrine falcon, Saqer is a common name of falcon in arabic

[q8kik]

@nobasic

I know it originated in Persia but that's not what i'm talking about
i was just saying that the name is masculine in the arabic language.

[Sarah_Ch]

I got your point it was just for clarifying :)

[GFahim]

yh shaheen is a male name and shaheena would be the female version :)

[mafiahajeri]

What? Shaheen is a family name in a lot of places and is considered mainly a mans name, lol haven't ever seen a girl called shaheen.

[T2X]

Maybe, they are thinking of Shayna. BTW, in the U.S.A. Shaheen is a predominantly Irish Last name.

[Ninver]

Dated a broad named Shaylene a few years ago. But never heard of a girl names shaheen.

[ZHZ90]

Shaheen is a Male name not a female that is in Arab.

[skydragoonity]

I like the over all concept of the character, curious about his fighting style

[gamer7804]

much better than the cute fun loving chloe girl character... /s

[Spotie]

Why not both?

[gamer7804]

was just being sarcastic, i'm totally good with this character, and would prefer both, but in the NA looks like they are removing the lucky chloe character.

[jetlian]

I just wish they had a wing chun and a drunken master character instead of all these fake fighting styles

Anyway so far 3 of the 4 looking cool.

[Hotabang]

As happy as i am that an arabic character was introduced, the person he was modeled after is a joke, no one respects him in our region, and everyone finds the story of what happened to him a laughable and embarrassing joke

[Sarah_Ch]

And why is that?! Cuz he's hot?

[Hotabang]

a "girlie man" is not hot >_<
plus what type of man paints his beard -_-

[Whitefeather]

He's not modeled after him, this website pulled it out of their ass.

[Hotabang]

oh ok, good to know.

[Amuro]

they look exactly the same though, I don't think is just coincidence.

[Majin-vegeta]

Noice The more characters the better.I'm hoping they leave lucky chloe in and dont take her out just cuz some babies over on GAF cried about her.

[ion666]

I like this character. I hope they bring back zafina too

[ironfist92]

And have Shaheen try to playfully flirt with Zafina in the story cutscenes. Thatd be awesome lol.

[bladesofagony]

Tekken is all about varieties, I give that, looking forward to playing with Shaheen, hope he lives upto my expectation, lol

[Amuro]

this new character looks really cool.

[SEAN1617]

Pretty cool my name is actually Shahin [shaheen]
It is a persian name meaning "falcon"

[turab]

its arabic name.......

[SEAN1617]

http://hamariweb.com/names/...

Sorry sir Persian....

[ion666]

What the hell is wrong with people. The arabic people are persian.

[XanderZane]

The character and name are fine. I hope Namco makes some changes to the gameplay. One of the things that always drove me crazy about Tekken was all the juggling you could do. With certain fighters you could get a guy in the air and juggle most then 1/2 his life bar away. A bit ridiculous. Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament are still my favorite Tekken games.

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

This seems like an incredibly racist article, I honestly don't see the resemblance. My brother has the same beard and facial structure too. This is a case of 'all x look alike'

[ninjahunter]

Looks pretty cool to me.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

first comment on the page is hilarious is a racist sorta way especially the hypocritical response to it lol

OT a man really hasn't been into Tekken since 3 maybe he'll try this out on Plus

[Deadpool616]

Tekken has always had a great mix of serious & oddball characters. A boxing Kangaroo and a jet propelled robotic girl with duel wielding chainsaws just attracts me. Shaheen seems to be in the serious half of the roster. I can't wait to play them all.

[plsburydoughboy]

If it means anything, I honestly do think it's based on that guy. Video game characters are generally made to be attractive so that we can more easily relate to them, so it would have been easy for Bamco to have been looking for references, come up with him first, and run with it.

I know I could be wrong, but at least don't doubt my sincerity here guys.

[Ninver]

The more characters from around the globe to fight with the better. I'm still astounded as to why there hasn't been an African Warrior from a ruthless tribe playable as a character. Mofo would be a badass for sure.

[plsburydoughboy]

I want to agree, but I think Harada understands he has to be careful when creating a more diverse roster for the game. I think he did well with Raven and Bruce, but he would tread very lightly around making a dark skinned African character.

BTW, reminder that Egypt is in Africa and Zafina is Egyptian, so an African character is already in the game

[Ninver]

There's truth to what you say yet

[ion666]

I think there's a bunch of black dudes in the game. They're awesome too. Raven, bruce irvin,eddy gordo. Plus I dont know if africa has a real martial art. I think they focus on weapons. Which why your character would fit in the soul calibur series. But can they do that without being rascist......I don't know.

[plsburydoughboy]

There are real African martial arts, AKA fighting arts without weapons. Aside from wrestling (which sprouts up natively in every culture), there is dambe, musangwe, moraingy, and engolo.

I should add that Harada may be constrained from researching more esoteric martial arts, compared to, say, Yu Suzuki was in developing Virtua Fighter, so this may not be feasible. Of course, in this situation, again, you need to be careful with respectful, accurate depictions of cultures when adding them in.

[Anime-Yatta]

l like the new character of tekken saudi's fighter and guys don't combain between (Shaheen) and (Shehaan) because Shaheen (male)name and (Shehaan) female name.