Tekken 8 Review – The Return of the King

The Tekken series is one that needs no introduction. Debuting on the very first PlayStation console, the franchise by Bandai Namco reached the peak of popularity with the release of Tekken 7, which went on to become the most popular fighting game of the previous console generation.

Topping the seventh entry in the series in terms of quality and popularity is a monumental feat to accomplish, and if Tekken 8 will be able to stay as relevant in the fighting game community as its predecessor will depend on a variety of factors, some outside of hands of series’ creator Katsuhiro Harada and his team. There’s no denying that the new entry in the series definitely has the potential to make it big, thanks to some new mechanics that make Tekken 8 the most aggressive entry in the series and the amazing visuals that make the war between the Mishima and Kazama families as epic as never before.

Tekken 8 wouldn’t be a modern Tekken game without a cinematic story mode, and the eighth entry in the series definitely delivers in this regard. Starting some time after the disappearance of Heihachi Mishima, his son Kazuya continues his quest for world domination using the forces of G Corporation to wage a war on the entire world. The world, however, isn’t just about to give control to Kazuya easily, and many powerful fighters, including Jin Kazama, attempt to stop him. Following a fierce battle between the two, Kazuya announces a new edition of the King of the Iron First Tournament, with some dangerous twists, as only those who prove their mettle and their countries of origin will be allowed to live in his new world order.

During the 15-chapter long story, which takes around a couple of hours to complete, depending on the chosen difficulty, players accompany Jin Kazama as he attempts to qualify for the tournament, come to terms with the devil blood coursing through his veins, and possibly save the world from his mad father. This journey is absolutely in line with what the series offered so far, narrated with pre-rendered and real-time sequences offering a mix of dramatic and comedic moments where every character of the base roster makes an appearance, although many are sidelined after a cutscene or two. Spicing up the experience are some fights with some unique conditions and some simple quick-time events that force players to stay on their toes even during cutscenes. Following the events may be a little difficult for those who are not die-hard fans of the series, but thankfully the game features a series of stylized digest movies that summarise the events of the previous entries in the series competently, bringing players up to speed to the events leading up to the new King of the Iron Fist Tournament.

While many of the Tekken 8 characters get sidelined after a short while, they still get their time in the spotlight with the Character Episodes. These side episodes feature a cinematic intro and ending and five fights against the CPU that shed more light on what they have been doing during the main events of the story. They are obviously not as long as the main story mode, but they are still a welcome addition that doesn’t make side characters feel left behind too much.

Alongside the story-related play modes, Tekken 8 features a couple more single-player and offline play modes, which are meant to prepare players for competitive play. Arcade Quest mode, for example, works great as a learning tool for both the basics of Tekken and its competitive multiplayer features, giving players a nice taste of real experience while allowing them to get used not only to the game’s mechanics but also its customization features for both playable characters and the avatar that will be displayed in the Fight Lounge.

While veteran players may not learn much by playing Arcade Quest mode, they would still do well to play it up to a certain point, as reaching a certain part in this mode will unlock the Final Round Arcade and the Super Ghost Battle as a stand-alone mode. This mode is quite interesting, as it allows players to fight against AI Ghosts based on AI learning of players’ tendencies. The ghosts learn when players play online and in Arcade Quest, and it is a great tool not only to practice against opponents that play as human opponents but also to find issues in one’s gameplay and fix them accordingly.

Super Ghost Battle complements Tekken 8’s Practice Mode quite well. This classic practice mode is enhanced by a few features, such as Combo Challenges, which allow players to go over some of the basic tools of each character, and Punish Training, which is, in my opinion, an amazing learning tool for both newcomers and veterans. In the Tekken series, all characters have a lot of moves that are safe on block, and knowing when it is possible to punish with fast 10 frames moves or launchers that lead to air combos and big damage is the difference between victory and defeat, so providing a feature that gives players some quick references in this regard is extremely welcome. The Move List has also been improved, highlighting each character’s most important techniques while also providing some information on certain quirks of all characters. Sadly, the game lacks dedicated character tutorials, so players still need to do their own research to learn the intricacies of each fighter’s style.

Rounding up Tekken 8’s single-player modes are Arcade Battle, a classic arcade mode that features eight battles against ghosts and CPU-controlled opponents, Versus Mode, a simple single-fight mode that also allows for CPU vs CPU fights, and Tekken Ball mode, a returning mode originally introduced in Tekken 3 which twists the rules a bit, as players can only damage the opponent by throwing a ball at them that can also be played online. Gallery Mode is also available, including the aforementioned digest movies as well as Story Mode, Character Episodes cutscenes, and Illustrations. All of the offline play modes, with the exception of Versus Mode, rewards players with Fight Money, in-game currency that can be used to purchase Customization options, of which there are plenty for each character. In this regard, Tekken 8 is clearly superior to, say, Street Fighter 6, whose character customization options are limited to avatars and whose monetization is far from being the most fair, although it may be too early to say for certain, as Bandai Namco did sell something essential to prepare for competitive play such as frame data in Tekken 7.

No play mode, no matter how varied or well put together, would matter if the core mechanics were bad, and in this regard, Tekken 8 definitely couldn’t fail, as its basics haven’t changed much over past entries in the series. Like in the past, the game comes with a wealth of movement options, allowing players to move forward or back as well as to the sides of the combat arena, and attacks, which are performed by pressing a specific combination of buttons that control the character’s limbs. Each character has a massive movelist of basic combo strings, launchers, and special attacks, so learning the moveset of one of the 32 launch characters and using it to its full potential is still as daunting as it ever was, also taking mechanics as wall bounces and other arena-specific gimmicks into account. Unlike other fighting games, the Tekken series is among those where legacy skill from past entries matters a lot, so newcomers will need a long time to come to grips with all of the combat system’s intricacies.

This time, however, the developers made some real effort to help newcomers not get destroyed as soon as they jump online with the Special Style control scheme. Similar to Street Fighter 6’s Modern Controls, this scheme simplifies the game’s regular controls, allowing players to trigger specialty moves, automatic air combos, Power Crushes, special armored moves that can stop pressure and a low attack. By pressing different directions alongside one of the buttons, it is possible to trigger different moves so as not to become too predictable. Interestingly enough, Special Style can be toggled on and off during a match by pressing a shortcut button, giving players maximum flexibility.

Just like for Street Fighter 6, I expect Special Style to be hotly debated once the game is released. I personally welcome its inclusion, as it made it easy for someone like me, who only played the previous entries in the series casually, to understand characters and their combo options better. Like in CAPCOM’s game, I also expect most hardcore players to stick to traditional controls, as the Special Style’s automatic combos are far from being optimized and force Heat usage where there may not be any need.

Alongside Special Style, the biggest addition to the series formula in Tekken 8 is the Heat System. Heat is an additional resource available right from the start and can be activated by pressing a dedicated button or unleashing specific moves called Heat Engagers. Once in this state, characters do chip damage on block, have new combo routes, and can use Hit Smash, a powerful move that ends Heat state, and Heat Dash, a special dash forward that allows players to continue a combo or keep up the pressure on block, at the cost of the Heat state.

The way it’s implemented, Heat mechanics turn Tekken 8 into one of the most aggressive entries in the series. The mechanics can be used once per every round, and in the hands of expert players, activating Heat at the right time often leads to the end of the round, in conjunction with the series’ usual explosive damage and other mechanics, such as Rage, which increases damage for characters in critical health and unlocks Rage Arts, ultimate moves that deal tons of damage. The fact that Heat gauge depletion after activation stops decreasing when the character is attacking results in a game that is best played on the offensive.

Any modern fighting game needs robust online features to stay relevant, but it’s in such a crucial area that Tekken 8 falters slightly. The game’s online features are pretty much standard fare for the genre at this point, as they include a big virtual lobby called Tekken Fight Lounge that attempts to recreate the arcade feeling complete with multiple virtual cabinets, additional facilities that grant access to character customization and online Tekken Ball and a lobby-wide chat, ranked and casual matchmaking, the latter called Quick Match. While in the lounge, players can also interact with other avatars to check their profiles, send friend requests, and download their Ghost Data for the Super Ghost feature.

While the Tekken Battle Lounge is a little bare, it is functional enough, and its features may be expanded in the future. It’s when an online match begins that the online Tekken 8 experience becomes disappointing. The game’s rollback netcode, which comes with three options – a standard option and two others that prioritize fluidity or responsiveness – is far from optimal. Any online match I played during the early access period either had a few rollback frames or additional delay, and the only games that were close to perfect were those with players in my country.

While a few frames of rollback or delay aren’t a huge issue in a game where the fastest attacks have 10 frames of startup, it still felt like something was off, even when the opponent was on a wired max bars connection, no matter the selected netcode option. There were also times when matches froze for a few seconds before resuming, so I wouldn’t expect the online launch experience to be flawless, even under optimal conditions. Wi-Fi players are also going to be a problem in the game, as every match I played against them had some sort of issue and high rollback frames. Thankfully, Tekken 8 features an indicator for the connection type, so players can refuse bad connections before a match begins. Additionally, the game also shows a disconnect rate value, so rage quitters will have a hard time getting matches in the long run.

It is a shame the Tekken 8 online experience is not as good as the rest of the game, as it somewhat diminishes the amazing learning tools Bandai Namco implemented in the game. Alongside the Super Ghost AI opponents, which replicate a real player’s style surprisingly well, the game also comes with a Replay Tips feature which pauses any given replay to show punishing opportunities, combo options, and so on, also allowing the player to practice them on the fly. Players can even take control of their character during the replay itself to correct their mistakes. Hopefully, the online experience in general will be improved after release to allow players to put these learning tools to use even if they do not have a local scene.

Where Tekken 8 definitely doesn’t disappoint are its visuals. The game is, without a doubt, one of the best-looking fighting games to date, featuring detailed character models, that can be fully customized, and combat arenas brimming with life. While there’s clearly been some asset and animation reuse over the last entry in the series, they are not exactly an issue, given how gorgeous everything looks in both still and in motion. Complementing the visuals well is a top-notch sound production, featuring voice actors from different parts of the world to make each character speak their own native tongue and some excellent tracks that will not fail to get stuck in players’ ears at first listen.

Powered by Unreal Engine 5 and having been developed for current generation consoles, Tekken 8 is also among the most demanding fighting games on the market in terms of system specifications. At the same time, the game offers a wealth of graphics settings to tweak to achieve the 60 frames per second required to enjoy it offline and online. Tekken 8 also supports all major upscalers on PC, so even those who don’t own an NVIDIA RTX GPU to take advantage of DLSS still get some options in this regard with AMD FSR 2.0 and Intel XeSS. As my system specifications are far above the recommended specs (i7-13700F CPU, RTX 4080 GPU, 32 GB RAM), I had no trouble running the game at 4K resolution with DLSS Quality, ultra settings with 60 FPS in all scenarios.

Creating a sequel that could top its predecessor was no small feat, but Katsuhiro Harada and his team definitely managed to do so almost effortlessly. While some mechanics, such as Heat and Special Style, will remain controversial for the entirety of the game’s run, Tekken 8 is an excellent fighting game whose quality is only partially impacted by its far-from-perfect netcode and limited single-player content.

PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

Tekken 8

Featuring cutting-edge visuals for fighting games and exceptional learning tools, Tekken 8 stands out as one of the best releases in the fighting game genre over the last few years. While the netcode is generally acceptable, regrettably, it falls short of replicating the seamless offline experience, a drawback that significantly affects the overall experience way more than the limited amount of single player content and somewhat diminishes the effectiveness of the game’s outstanding learning tools, particularly for those unable to engage in offline multiplayer matches.