Elden Ring has slowly, but certainly, crept into virtually every aspect of the contemporary gaming culture, and it seems that fans of FromSoftware’s latest flagship release aren’t about to stop anytime soon. In fact, another major Bandai Namco franchise has now been infected with Elden Ring, and that’s Tekken.
A Tekken 7 modder has taken to launching a huge Elden Ring mod for the game, featuring over half a dozen fan-favorite characters, such as Alexander the Living Jar and a giant lobster. The list of modded characters is every bit as eclectic as it is exciting, but not everyone seems to be thrilled about this development.
The Tekken 7 mod pack that introduces Elden Ring characters to the roster was created by Ultraboy, and it features Melina, Ranni, Alexander, Torrent, Raging Wolf Armor, Radahn, Prisoner, Lobster, and Malenia. While the character models don’t quite fit into the general aesthetic of the game, or look like part of the DLC content included in Tekken 7: Definitive Edition, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada seems to be worried that people may think this is an officially-produced piece of content.
Harada believes that people will misunderstand the nature of the Tekken 7 Elden Ring modpack and assume that Bandai Namco itself is sanctioning its release, and has said on Twitter that “it’s a ridiculously well-made mod but plz stop it lol.” Much like last year’s Tifa Lockheart mod for Tekken 7, Ultraboy’s latest venture is a replacer as well, in that Elden Ring character models are used as replacements for existing and established characters in Tekken’s considerable roster. The Lobster, for example, replaces one of Heihachi’s skins, and therefore inherits his moveset.
Since Ultraboy is a known quantity in Tekken 7’s modding community, and has a long and storied history of implementing all manner of character models into the game, it seems reasonable to assume that Elden Ring fans might commission further mods of the same type in the near future. The question that ought to be asked as well, then, is whether Tekken’s character models could be used to replace bosses in Elden Ring. The currently available mods for Elden Ring haven’t done many visual tweaks, after all.
It’s no accident that Elden Ring and Tekken 7 are some of Bandai Namco’s finest games according to Metacritic. As they’re published by the same company, Harada’s concerns do make sense as well, as it’s easy to see why someone might imagine this whole stunt is the publisher’s way of bolstering both of its franchises in one fell swoop. Still, there’s no controlling the modding community, and it’s entirely possible that this is just the start of it.
Tekken 7 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
