Tekken boss once tried to get KFC's Colonel Sanders to join the roster, but the chicken superpower wouldn't budge: 'They weren't very open to the idea'

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.