Last updated: April 25, 2023
Since it was officially confirmed in September 2022, Tekken 8 he has always kept the spotlight on himself. It could not have been otherwise, if we think about it: we are talking about one of the historical franchises in the world of fighting gamecon Bandai Namco which, after the success of the previous Tekken 7, is ready to give him an heir keeping in mind what he has learned up to now.
Therefore, many of the characters we have come to love return; there will be several novelties in terms of gameplay, we will confront once again the dark soul of Jin, Kazuya and their family. And Namco knows that today Tekken is also considered an eSport, which is why it aims to raise the bar a lot. showmanship with this new iteration.
In anticipation of its release and given the great flurry of roster introductions that are coming, we have put it together for you everything you need to know about Tekken 8, from its characteristics to its technical component, passing through the already confirmed characters.
Tekken 8: everything we know
History and lore of the game
Although the story told by the Tekken saga is a bit tangled (to put it mildly, ed), as the numbering suggests, the story told by Tekken 8 will be a direct sequel to what we saw in Tekken 7set six months later.
This means, assures Bandai Namco, that we will be dealing with what should be the definitive clash between Jin Kazama and his father Kazuya Mishima, with both sharing the demonic gene that occasionally takes possession of their personalities, giving prevalence to Devil Jin and Devil Kazuya.
In the words of the publisher:
«As quoted from the final dialogue of Tekken 7, this new chapter will focus on the father-son confrontation tra Kazuya Mishima e Jin Kazama».
Hard to say whether or not it could be the final clash between the two, but the build-up that Bandai Namco is preparing for this aspect of the narrative could still suggest an epic confrontation between the descendants of Heihachi Mishima.
Moreover, adding spice to the story could also be the fact that it was confirmed the return of Jun Kazama, Jin’s mother whom we have not seen in action since Tekken 2 – and who, in the lore of the saga, was in fact considered dead from the third episode onwards. Is Jin ready to discover further secrets directly from his mother?
For now, the certainty is that Jin intends to kill Kazuya to put things back in order. We’ll see if and how he succeeds, considering that the Mishimas don’t give up so easily.
Gameplay ed engine
In order to give Jin and Kazuya a big stage to battle each other, Bandai Namco decided to redo the look full story: Tekken 8 it is in fact made in Unreal Engine 5the latest generation graphics engine which – from what we have seen to date – promises to go hand in hand with the new consoles.
In this regard, the publisher was keen to point out that, with the transition to the new engine, is building all the models and graphic assets from scratch. So let’s not expect to see reworked and revised models of the protagonists we had already had in Tekken 7, because Bandai Namco has promised painstaking work. Likewise, all the voice actors are also back to re-voice their counterparts from scratch – which makes Tekken 8 decidedly new, even for those who know the saga inside out.
There will also be important news in terms of purely gameplay. As confirmed by the developers, in fact, the new fighting game wants to reward an aggressive approach to fightingto prevent many from settling on a type of wait-and-see battle, in which they remain motionless and on parade waiting for the enemy to open his guard.
Speaking of which, Tekken 8 reinvents the Rage system from Tekken 7 as a Heat system: as your character accumulates his momentum, with successful attacks, he will fill a blue bar shown below the vital one. When it’s full, you can activate the Heat by pressing R1/RB.
At this point, your character will be able to do more damage, but also break his guard more easily. You’ll also be surrounded by flames on your body, signaling you (and your enemy) that you’re in Heat mode. The full bar, which you used to screw this status, will gradually start to decrease, showing you how much time is left to return to the “standard” condition.
Normally, the Heat moment lasts 10 seconds, but if your opponent takes or parries the blows you are targeting him with, the bar will stop decreasing for that single moment, lasting longer. In short, it means that if you launch an attack, the Heat moment can last longer and bring you a big advantage.
The authors also anticipated that it will be possible to activate the Heat mode with some Heat Engager: these are five moves for each character, alternatives to simply pressing R1/RB to start the discharge of the bar, which will trigger the Heat already starting with an attack.
It is also worth noting that the Heat bar displays two symbols in the shape of an “8” (or infinity, if you prefer), which can be “spent”, once charged, to unleash unique attacks only possible in Heat.
Among other features, we know that defending against standard or charged attacks there will be the possibility to make one’s health regenerable. This is a different regeneration than the one seen in Tekken Tag Tournament, explained the author Katsuhiro Harada: part of the damage you suffer while defending yourself from a certain attack could be recoverable and in fact you will see a different segment on your health bar ( you can see it above in the embed video, at 6:24).
However, to recover health simply waiting is no longer enough: health, in fact, is recovered by proving to be aggressive, considering that “aggression” is the keyword of the game. This means you can try to recover something hitting your enemy or forcing him to parry in the face of your attacks.
“It is as if adrenaline is released from the body to recover from those damages” explained the developers, regarding this idea of ​​​​recovery of health. Forget, as you did in the Tekken Tag Tournament, to retreat to recover your life bar, in short: you will have to attack and take risks – and take into account the fact that, if instead the opponent hits you, he could drastically reduce the amount of health you can still recover.
In addition, Namco has already confirmed a greater environmental interaction. The scenarios that will be the background to the clashes of the characters are devoted to a high level of spectacularity, at least in the intentions of the publisher and developer. To maniacally test its variety and depth in detail, we will, as always, have to wait for the final game.
It has also already been confirmed by Harada that Tekken 8 will rely on possibility of cross play (a feature that Bandai Namco had actually wanted to include in the saga for some time, but for which it was unable to obtain the support of the platform holders).
It’s also been reiterated that it will boast netcode rollback, so online play should also fend for itself quite well, in terms of the latest tech.
Characters: roster and trailer
Bandai Namco gradually presented the first ones with several trailers characters that we will see in the roster of Tekken 8between some obvious comebacks and others that took us rather by surprise – like that of Jun Kazama which, as we mentioned, had been missing since Tekken 2.
At the moment, the characters already confirmed are the following ones, of which we also offer you the trailers. The roster has not yet been fully revealedas is clear, and the publisher is presenting new protagonists from week to week.
Jin Kazama (e Devil Jin)
Kazuya Mishima (e Devil Kazuya)
Jun Kazama
Nina Williams
Paul Phoenix
Marshall Law
Jack -8
King
Lars Alexandersson
Ling Xiaoyu
Asuka Kazama
Leroy Smith
Lili
Jin Kazama (e Devil Jin)
Here our news dedicated to the return of Jin.
Kazuya Mishima (e Devil Kazuya)
Jun Kazama
You can see here our complete news dedicated to his return.
Nina Williams
The most famous assassin of the franchise could not fail to return, as mentioned in this news.
Paul Phoenix
Strengthened by a completely new look, Paul was the protagonist of our news here.
Marshall Law
You will find at this address the news dedicated to the return of Law.
Jack-8
At this link our complete news dedicated to Jack-8.
King
One of the most famous characters of the franchise: we talked about his return in this dedicated news.
Lars Alexandersson
Find on our website the complete news dedicated to the return of this character.
Ling Xiaoyu
Here our news about Xiaoyu.
Asuka Kazama
Find here our news dedicated to the return of Asuka. Below is the trailer of her.
Leroy Smith
The eccentric Leroy makes his return: our news here, his trailer below.
Lili
Also confirmed that in the roster we will see the return of Lili, as we told you in the news here.
Game trailer
In addition to the videos that we have already proposed in the body of this article, below you can find the other trailers with which Tekken 8 was presented to us.
Reveal Trailer
Il reveal trailershown in September 2022, allowed us to see the everlasting conflict between Jin and Kazuya up close.
Story e Gameplay Teaser
The next teaser, shown on December 9, is the one that also dusted off Jun’s return, leading us to discover some glimpses of gameplay and to see some of the protagonists quickly in action.
Release: when it comes out and on which platforms
At the moment we still don’t know what the launch window will be of Tekken 8, which is still without a release date. Bandai Namco limited itself to letting it be known that the appointment is still “TBA” (to be announced, ed) and there are rumors that speak of a release between 2023 and 2024, not confirmed. The release, however, will be anticipated by a beta – but we must in turn find out when it will be fixed.
For the moment, therefore, we have to wait, but we keep the spotlights for any news that may be presented by the Japanese publisher.
As it is obvious, we don’t even know the price yet or if the game will launch with a possible Collector’s Edition. On the other hand, we already know the platforms on which Tekken 8 will be releasedwhich will be PC, PS5 e Xbox Series X|S. There’s no mention of an older generation console release, and considering the use of UE5 and the launch that could only arrive in 2024, it seems frankly a very sensible choice.
