The first year of Tekken 8 is drawing to a close, and the 3D fighting game has had a strong start. Controversies regarding DLC practices and the first Tekken 8 iteration of the Tekken World Tour have stayed on its heels, but the game is generally in a good state right now. Fans are enjoying the improved netcode of this entry compared to prior ones, and its focus on aggression through the Heat system has also gone over better than some veteran players feared. With one more season 1 DLC character on the horizon, the future of Tekken 8 looks bright.
Helping matters has been Bandai Namco’s Chief Producer of Action/Fighting Games, Katsuhiro Harada. Although he has stepped down from Tekken‘s directorial chair with T8 after being the series’ primary director since Tekken 3, he is still involved with many of its internal and external affairs. That includes public relations, and Harada has spent the last few years not only running podcasts and attending major events, but also posting development insights on social media, including vital information that could aid some of Tekken 8‘s worst controversies. One of his November 2024 tweets even revealed the logic behind a notable Tekken 8 roster cut, but adhering to that logic in future games could be risky.
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Tekken 8’s Roster May Be Big, But It’s Still Missing a Lot of Fan Favorites
While the 32-character base roster of the latest Tekken is one of the most impressive in the entire series, many fighters still had to be left out.
Why Tekken 8 Left Tekken 7’s Eliza Behind
On November 18, Harada addressed a fan asking for the Tekken Revolution and Tekken 7 character Eliza to join Tekken 8. Although Harada is also fond of the narcoleptic vampire, she isn’t likely to return due to the development challenges involved. Eliza is widely regarded as a test for Tekken 7’s guest fighters, Akuma and Geese, as all three had meter-based mechanics and accessible projectiles. She wasn’t a competitive terror like the other two “2D characters,” but sharing their quirks while boasting a few of her own made tuning Eliza a unique challenge across Tekken 7’s long life.
Eliza’s Abilities Added Unnecessary Work To Tekken’s Updates
Changing Eliza’s parameters even a little risked making her too weak or too strong compared to the rest of Tekken 7’s roster. The Tekken franchise has always incorporated redundant elements into fighters to improve balance and development flow, so having such a large departure was inviting trouble. Eliza frequently annoyed the battle tuning staff and some tournament players despite never being labeled broken like her meter-using peers, which Harada indicates was the reason why she didn’t make it to Tekken 8. Some would argue that losing Eliza is a reasonable price for ditching Akuma and Geese as well, but this reasoning could be dangerous if it sticks around.
Future Tekken Games Can’t Let Balance Decide Character Slots
If Eliza was left behind for being unique in a problematic way, one must wonder if other characters could be cut from Tekken 9 for the same reason. Cutting headaches is a sensible and easy solution to maintaining Tekken’s tight balance long-term, but hitting every problem character that crops up risks being even more controversial than those fighters were during their dominance. Eliza was only around for the live-service spin-off Tekken Revolution and one subsequent mainline game, but developer frustrations could also hurt returning non-essential Tekken characters if they get bad enough.
Tekken 8’s Dragunov Is In Danger Of Following Eliza
Sergei Dragunov is Tekken 8’s current target. He is a silent Russian soldier who joined Tekken 5, but hit his stride in Tekken 7. Dragunov’s atypical moveset employs a straightforward poking approach, but its versatility and high damage makes him dangerous in skilled hands. Tekken 7 humbled him after years of nerfs, but Tekken 8’s Heat system synergized with the aggressive Dragunov so well that he has topped tier lists for several months. And yet, as of late October, Harada has him pegged as the fifth most-used character worldwide. Fixing Dragunov will probably come later in Tekken 8’s life, but his repeated offenses might have long-term consequences that his fans will feel the most.
- Released
- January 26, 2024
- Multiplayer
- Local Multiplayer , Online Multiplayer
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- ESRB
- t
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, PS5 & Xbox Series X|S