How to unlock more fighters in Tekken without spending big

When you first start playing the mobile version of Tekken, you have access to just enough fighters (three) so that you can participate in every game mode. But do you want to stop there? No, of course you don't.

See, Tekken includes characters from throughout the console/arcade/wherever you play video games franchise, and the only way to really appreciate that fact is to gather as many of the dozens of fighters already in the game at launch. Tekken is a free-to-play affair, so you can definitely pay to unlock fighters faster, but we'd rather focus on the ways you can do it by not spending money.

First, though, let's answer a question you might already have.

Why is it good to have a lot of fighters in Tekken?

One of the issues that previous mobile fighting games have grappled with is how to ensure that every character has a purpose. It's not much fun to collect a bunch of lower rarity characters and just have them sit around on your roster, never to see the light of day.

Tekken avoids that problem by including numerous time-limited, rotating events. Found under the 'Time Based Live Events' tab (surprise!) on the 'Fight Mode' screen, many of these battles require you to use a one-star fighter. So even if you have rarer and more powerful characters at your disposal, it behooves you to level up and keep even your most basic fighters ready.

As well, one of the launch events was a boss battle against an enemy with an insane amount of health, which earned you rewards based on the cumulative damage you inflicted. Since you could only use one-star fighters, it helped to have as many as possible on hand. Expect to see more of these from Tekken as time goes on.

What are fragments?

If you've played any mobile game where unlocking characters is part of the deal -- so a ton of them -- you've undoubtedly come across some that make you collect shards before you have access to a new character. Tekken is no different, except that its shards are called fragments.

One welcome difference between this game and many others is that you don't need to collect a ton of fragments to earn more powerful, higher rarity fighters. It's 10 fragments per fighter to unlock, regardless of rarity. The only thing to keep in mind is that the right kind of fragments are necessary for each different tier. In other words, the fragments you use to unlock a three-star Marshall Law are separate from the ones used to unlock his four-star counterpart, and four-star fragments are very difficult to earn.

How to unlock more fighters for free

Let's break down the multiple ways to add more fighters fto your team, from easiest to most complicated (though happily, none are truly all that difficult).

• Just play Tekken every day - You'll notice pretty quickly that like many other mobile games of all genres, Tekken gives you some kind of reward for your first login on any given day. Guess what? Some of those rewards are fighter fragments, while others are flat out entire new fighters. If you dig the game, you owe it to yourself to at least check in once a day, as your character collection will thank you for it.
• Hit the store - No worries, we promised we weren't talking about spending real money yet. The in-game store contains packs you can buy for coins or Gems, each of which has the chance of providing you with fragments. Be sure to keep an eye out for character-specific packs if your goal is to unlock a particular fighter.
• Keep grinding through the story mode on different difficulty settings - Playing through the Story Mode is something you'll probably do naturally, but don't forget that once you beat an act, you can play back through it on a higher difficulty. The motivation for doing so is pretty simple: The rewards get better, and can include fighter shards for characters that are tough or impossible to earn any other way.
• Have Dojo chests going at all times - The Dojo is where Tekken PvP takes place (albeit of the asynchronous kind for now), and the chests you earn for victories there sometimes contain fighter fragments. Dojo chests take some time to open, often hours for the bigger ones, though you can also open them instantly with keys earned by the fighters you field on defense. The idea here is that you want to be working on having Dojo chests in the queue to open as often as possible, the better to keeo those fragments flowing.