Jin's first appearance was within Tekken 3, where he is introduced as a boy "claiming to be Heihachi's grandson". According to official canon, during the King of Iron Fist Tournament 2, Jun Kazama and Kazuya Mishima were intimate, and Jun found herself pregnant afterwards. Jun disappeared into a remote mountain location where she raised Jin and trained him in her Kazama-Style Self-Defense fighting arts. Some time after Jin's 15th birthday, Jun was attacked by Ogre and disappeared. Grieving the loss of his mother, Jin swore revenge. Jin was then taken in by his grandfather, Heihachi Mishima, who began to train him in Mishima-Based Karate.

Subsequent games follow the events of Jin's ending within Tekken 3. Jin's "Prologue" cinema in Tekken 4 shows that, after Heihachi's betrayal, Jin fell into a pit of self-hatred, despising everything related to the Mishimas. Locating a secluded dojo in brisbane Australia, he spent two years unlearning the Mishima style he had used up to that point and mastered "traditional" karate thanks to the help of the dojo master. Eventually, the rumors of a King of Iron Fist Tournament 4 began to surface and Jin set his sights on this new tournament.

Within Jin's Story Mode, before he can make it to the fight with Kazuya in the seventh round, he is surrounded by the Tekken Force, incapacitated, and chained up at Heihachi's private building in Hon-Maru. Later, Heihachi brings Kazuya to Hon-Maru, and, while Jin is chained, Kazuya attempts to awaken the Devil within Jin. As Jin begins transforming, he attacks and defeats his father. Next, Heihachi attempts to kill Jin and take his power for his own.

Again, based on subsequent Tekken games, Jin's ending is made the story's central focus, with Tekken 5's introduction sequence set only seconds afterward. G Corporation (the rival company to Heihachi's Mishima Zaibatsu) sends an army of Jack robots to kill Heihachi and Kazuya. The two cooperate briefly, but Kazuya betrays Heihachi.  The Jacks self-detonate, destroying the Hon-Maru and apparently killing Heihachi. However, Hon-Maru was the location where Heihachi had sealed his father, Jinpachi Mishima, approximately three decades earlier. Jinpachi is freed when Hon-Maru was destroyed.

Jin's Story Mode Prologue states that, immediately after leaving Hon-Maru, Jin's own Devil Gene went berserk. Jin soon found himself awakening inside of an utterly destroyed forest, realizing that he was the cause of the destruction. After returning to Yakushima, he is plagued by recurring nightmares  and realizes that it's only a matter of time before the Devil Gene completely takes over. From here, the story shifts to Devil Within.

As of April 2007, Namco has yet to produce an official English translation of the Tekken 6 storyline. However, according to fan-based translations, Jin has been revealed as the winner of The King of Iron Fist Tournament 5 and the new CEO of the Mishima Zaibatsu. However, instead of putting an end to the Zaibatsu, Jin has begun using the company for world conquest, just like his father did before him, and declared war on several nations until the whole world itself is at war. Kazuya, meanwhile, has taken control of G Corporation and risen to become the Mishima Zaibatsu's only opponent, and has put a bounty on Jin's head, dead or alive, to stop him interfering with his own plans for world domination. Jin, having anticipated this, announces the King of Iron Fist Tournament 6 to rid himself of Kazuya and his enemies once and for all.