It’s been a bumpy road Tekken 8 but how has it fared one year in?
January 26 has passed us, marking Tekken 8’s first year since it released — and boy, what a tumultuous first year it has been.
The latest entry to the King of Iron Fist tournament launched with favorable reviews and massive hype. But things got a little messy once the honeymoon phase was over.
Aggressive
Don’t really need to say much else; this was the overarching philosophy developers Bandai Namco had for Tekken 8 and is both its appeal and point of frustration.
All throughout Tekken 8’s first year there was constant discourse about how drastically its new mechanics changed the game. The new Heat system gives characters massive power swings, making every match feel extremely volatile. Never before could you kill someone in two combos in Tekken but when used properly, the Heat system made that a regular occurrence.
Things got so bad that even the pro players started speaking up about it. It was a particularly nasty period of time for Tekken 8’s first year, especially when Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique, one of the greatest players to ever play Tekken, had this to say about the game.
Things have quieted down since then, with Bandai Namco constantly updating the game to address player frustrations. Even the pros like Arslan Ash mellowed out and took the time to really learn Tekken 8. However, the sentiment still remains and constantly mars Tekken 8’s image even now.
Downloadable Content Drama
If the constant dooming about Tekken 8’s gameplay wasn’t enough, there was also friction with its DLC practices as well. It started off pretty good with fan-favorite capoeira master Eddy and Polish Prime Minister Lidia returning to the roster. With the announcement of Heihachi Mishima’s return at Evo 2024, it should have been a slamdunk in terms of content for Tekken 8’s first year.
But then news came through that Heihachi’s accompanying stage needed to be bought separately.
For context, Tekken 8 has a year one pass where buyers would presumably get all the first season DLC as they are released. That held true for Lidia who came with her own stage but suddenly that wasn’t the case for Heihachi. This caused a massive wave of backlash to the point that fans began reviewing bombing the game.
It got so bad that Tekken director and producer Katsuhiro Harada had to make a statement about the situation. While the honest and candid reply from Harada was appreciated, he has since deleted his statement from social media, which says something about the situation in Bandai Namco.
Since then they’ve released Clive, a guest character and the protagonist of Final Fantasy XVI. With his release, Bandai Namco seems to be sticking to their original promise of keeping both the character and the stage in the year one pass. Hopefully that’ll be the end to this drama though we’ll have to wait and see.
The More Things Change…
Despite the problems with its gameplay and DLC, one thing is certain: Tekken 8’s first year was a big success.
The Heat system was designed to make Tekken’s spectacular fights flashier and faster for audiences. And despite grumblings about Clive’s inclusion, some of Tekken’s most popular DLC’s were guest characters so having one in Tekken 8 was no surprise.
And above it all, the game is still fun to play and watch. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have broken its all-time franchise registration record during Evo 2024. And even though this has the most radical changes in a Tekken entry, it’s still the best players in the world who’re succeeding in Tekken 8.
Arslan Ash won his fifth Evo Tekken championship in Evo 2024 and Jeong “Rangchu” Hyeon-ho won the Tekken World Tour 2024, repeating his 2018 victory. No matter what people say, Tekken 8 still rewards those who put the effort into becoming better. Year one was a learning experience for Tekken 8 and we’re sure to see the fruits of it in 2025.
Banner images from Steam and Alexander Kovalev on Pexels.