The battle of the big fighting game series goes into the next round: Street Fighter 6 has been impressive – how can Tekken 8 keep up with it?
Heihachi Mishima is dead – how many times have we heard this sentence in the Tekken universe? Guys, nobody really believes you any more! And yet we hear it again in the official gamescom trailer. So we can safely assume that the good man will once again unsurprisingly come back from the dead in Tekken 8 and show his clan who the true personalised Bad Hair Day is!
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The trusted mouth brigade
At gamescom we had the opportunity to take a close look at an early beta version of Tekken 8. It only contained the versus mode and only half of the 32 fighters announced for the launch – and no surprises there: Nina, King, Lars, Hwoarang, Xiaoyu, Jin Kazama or Kazuya Mishima are always welcome acquaintances.
The biggest surprise was that Paul Phoenix forgoes his tower hairdo by default and instead wears a greasepaint curl that makes him look like an aging member of a ’90s boy band.
The release will see the addition of other well-known Haudruffs such as Raven, Steve Fox, Yoshimitsu, Dragunov, Shaheen and Kuma. All will again be remarkably detailed customisable: Shirts, trousers, shoes, noses, hairstyles and tons of accessories, some of them enormously wacky again, will certainly make for circus clowns in the ring again.
Newcomers welcome
Bandai Namco promises a new, more aggressive fighting system for Tekken 8, which rewards more offensive tactics and delivers spectacular fights
Honestly? Currently it feels extremely much like Tekken 7. The main new feature we got to play ourselves was that each fighter gets to activate their Special Style
via a press of the L1 button (the beta ran on a PlayStation 5). This is primarily intended for less experienced fight fans, as it makes it easier to trigger some of the respective special moves and there are also some new attacks waiting.
Those who have spent some time with Tekken 7 will not only enjoy a reunion with some of the new fighters introduced there (first and foremost Wing Tsun pro Leroy Smith as well as Sirius-style Exorcism Sorcery fighter Claudio Serafino), but will especially welcome the new Rage Arts. These are extra-powerful desperation attacks that you are allowed to activate when your life energy is almost depleted – if they land, they can still easily turn the tide.
The rage is mine!
And if not, at least there’s spectacular animation to watch. For the Rage Arts are once again quite excellently staged: Kazuya turns into Devil and kicks his opponent through the floor. Nina first beats up her opponent before giving him a final chest massage. Law lets super-fast and extremely painful-looking nunchucks speak. And Lili breaks all kinds of bones in her opponent – but at least in a very elegant way.
As in the predecessor, the Rage Arts in Tekken 8 are again very effects-heavy. Thankfully, only the Rage Arts: Just like the special attacks in Street Fighter 6, the effect cannon is only turned up to 11 when an automatically running Rage Arts is unwound – the normal mano-a-mano remains pleasantly clear.
The Red in Your Enemy’s Eye
Generally speaking: Tekken 8 once again looks devilishly good! As in its predecessor, the graphics are based on the latest Unreal technology, which makes the fighters in particular look simply fantastic!
Extremely detailed figures with scars, scratches and birthmarks, softly falling hairstyles, clothes whose different fabrics you can literally feel – yes, we’ve really come a long way in terms of graphics technology since the very first Tekken (1994)!
Unlike its direct predecessor, Bandai Namco is now fully committed to the current generation – Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are left out, Tekken 8 will only be released for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5 as well as PC of course (via Steam), with the current date set for 26 January 2024.
My Avatar can do Kung-Fu!
A brand new game mode is called Arcade Quest, and unfortunately was not playable. There’s not a lot of info on it yet, and the Bandai Namco staff present at gamescom didn’t let too much slip either. Arcade Quest seems to go in the direction of Street Fighter 6’s Battle Hub – a central hub for players where you can play online matches and tournaments and experience a story separate from the main game.
The first thing they are allowed to do is create an avatar that visually goes in the direction of the Xbox avatars, and just like the actual Tekken 8 fighters, is highly customisable. With this figure, which is designed to be very cuddly, you then wander through a virtual arcade, meet other online athletes and complete various training modes.
There are slot machines where you can let off steam and a character advancement system – but what effects this will ultimately have has not yet been revealed.
Editor’s conclusion
I love the Tekken series! At the latest since part 3, Hwoarang, Eddy or Nina have cast a spell over me and never let go. And what I’ve been able to play of Tekken 8 so far feels absolutely solid in every respect: The fights are furiously fast and punchy, the squad again promises a lot of variety, the game looks simply gorgeous.
In short: this is clearly a modern Tekken! And yet I sense a touch of stagnation: everything seems familiar and a bit playing it safe. And I really don’t know what to do with the “Arcade Quest”. But well – even a stagnant Tekken is still a Tekken. And the world can never have too much of that.
