TEKKEN 8: RELEASE DATE NEWS, LEAKS, ROSTER RUMOURS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE WE KNOW




With a new console generation well underway, Tekken 8 is surely set to arrive sooner rather than later. The last game, Tekken 7, launched many moons ago in February 2015 and to date has blown past 8 million sales as of the end of 2021. So it feels like it’s about time for another King of the Iron Fist Tournament to get underway. Surely though, for anyone wondering if there will be Tekken 8, the question must be a resounding yes given the historic success of the series and the most recent outing. With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about Tekken 8.

18 Aug Update - Checked for the latest Tekken 8 news. All the most recent updates are found just below.

Tekken 8 Leaks

Back in September 2021 fans saw a well-publicised NVIDIA GeForce Now database leak which more or less allowed users to have access to NVIDIA’s internal database of upcoming releases. This included several unnamed and unannounced games, including “Tekken 8”. Speaking to WCCFTech at the time, NVIDIA issued the following statement:

“NVIDIA is aware of an unauthorized published game list, with both released and/or speculative titles, used only for internal tracking and testing. Inclusion on the list is neither confirmation nor an announcement of any game. NVIDIA took immediate action to remove access to the list. No confidential game builds or personal information were exposed.”

Since the leak contains some ‘speculative’ titles it’s impossible to say with any certainty that the new Tekken game on the list is genuine or a fabrication. But then again, it seems fairly likely that a new Tekken would be coming eventually, so we’re more inclined to believe its inclusion wasn’t without merit.

Tekken 8 Release Date

At the time of writing Bandai Namco is still yet to reveal Tekken 8 or a release date for the game. However, we do have some clues which help provide some context for when the next game could arrive.

A recent episode of Harada’s Bar – a talk show hosted by Katsuhiro Harada, the producer of Tekken – included guest appearances from pro Street Fighter 5 player Rohto|Tokido and Virtua Fighter Producer Seiji Aoki. Both guests attempted to get Harada to give any info on the next Tekken project.

As you might imagine, Harada didn’t willingly hand over any concrete info, however, there was one interesting tidbit picked up by EventHubs. More specifically, Harada seemed to suggest that both Bandai Namco and Capcom would try to avoid overlapping any of their reveals or releases.

“We’re always careful not to overlap release dates,” said Harada. “We try not to release at the same time of the same year. We don’t want to crush each other.”

“It’s not like we arrange dates or anything. We just read between the lines. We try not to release at the same time of the same year. We don’t want to crush each other. It’s not like we arrange dates or anything.”

“We just read between the lines. When Ono gave us the date for an important Street Fighter announcement, we often rescheduled our own announcement to not overlap,” continued Harada. “Mostly it was on us to reschedule. We only asked them to reschedule when it was really important.”

With this in mind, it could be we’re waiting quite some time for Tekken 8. In fact, given we’re expecting Street Fighter 6 to release in early 2023, we might be waiting until the latter half of 2023 (at the earliest) for Tekken 8.

What Platforms Will Tekken 8 Be On?

It felt like for the longest time that Tekken games were exclusive to PlayStation consoles, but in more recent releases we’ve also seen the game arrive on a wider variety of platforms. It’s worth noting, that the series only arrived on Xbox with Tekken 6 back in 2009.

Regardless, we’d imagine that Tekken 8 will arrive on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and who knows, maybe even the Nintendo Switch. Whether the game is also available on older platforms like PS4 and Xbox One isn’t clear, but we imagine that given we’re still waiting on the game to be announced, we think it’s plausible that the game skips the old-gen consoles.

What Characters Will Be In Tekken 8?

It’s impossible at this stage to suggest how big the roster could be for Tekken 8, but it seems clear that the seasonal model has worked out pretty well for the game. It’s worth noting Tekken 7 launched with 36 characters on the roster, with plenty more added as part of post-launch DLC.

We imagine Tekken 8 will launch with a similar number of characters and look to once again release more and more post-launch. It’s obviously a system that worked previously and whilst some fans might be keen on a more complete version of the game at launch, it means also that there would likely be far less content to add to the game.

Likewise, we imagine that the game will also continue to pull from plenty of guests characters in the future too. With Tekken 7 we saw the likes of Akuma from Street Fighter, Geese Howard from the King of Fighters, Noctis from Final Fantasy XV and even Negan from The Walking Dead. Where else can Tekken 8 go from here?

Personally, we’d love to see some characters from Darkstalkers, Virtua Fighter and maybe someone like Luke from Street Fighter, who seems to be Capcom’s new poster boy for the series and a good fit for Tekken too.


What Do Pro Players Want From Tekken 8

In 2021 Red Bull was lucky enough to speak with a handful of pro players about what they would want to see from the next game in the series. The site spoke with Hoa ‘Anakin’ Luu and Kana ‘Tanukana’ Tani and we would suggest giving the entire interview a read, which should take you roughly 10+ minutes.

Speaking with the pros, they cover everything from how Tekken 8 should approach netcode, guest characters, and even some ideas of new mechanics which could be introduced.

We won’t post loads of quotes, since we think you should go read the full interview, but we particularly loved this segment from Kana talking about the importance of a having a good netcode at launch:

“There was a long-awaited large-scale update to Tekken 7 in November 2020, which included various character updates and system additions. One of the most talked-about updates among the Japanese players was the improvement of the netcode. Not only in Japan, but also in other Asian countries, players can now compete at a competitive level, and I am learning every day how to compete with new and strong players.”

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