Tekken 8 is currently facing a unprecedented crisis in the franchise’s history, less than a year since its launch.
Most of the issues we explain below were originally covered by theScore esports, and we will also share a key update below.
While Tekken 8 had a successful launch last January 8, 2024, on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, the game has already been facing some reputational damage in the months that followed. On one level, the game’s FGC isn’t happy with the meta with the game, as they aren’t doing enough rebalancing between the characters.
As a result, the competitive scene is currently dominated by two to five characters, and those are the same characters that are seen the most in tournaments. One may say this shouldn’t be a big issue, but it does turn off some players, and potentially limits the appeal of watching eSports tournaments.
But Tekken has bigger issues looming. The biggest issue around Tekken 8 right now is its DLC. While fighting games have been the subject of criticism for DLC in the past, in this specific instance Bandai Namco is incredibly aggressive.
The base version of Tekken 8 is priced at $ 70, and it costs over $ 100 to get it with Season 1. Like other fighting games, Tekken promises new characters and other content per season. However, with the pending debut of returning character Heihachi Mishima, they are launching a new stage, Genmaji Temple, for $ 5.
If you had only heard the price of the stage, you might have thought the issue was minor. Since Genmaji Temple was not added to the season pass, Bandai Namco is basically asking competitive players for a little over $ 105 now.
This decision particularly harms competitive players, because Tekken 8 stages have unique qualities like differing shapes and sizes of play areas, and unique stage interactions. If you play the game competitively, you need to learn Genmaji Temple. But even if you were willing to pay $ 105, online is set up in such a way that people who didn’t buy the stage can’t play on it. In other words, competitive players also have to worry if they can prepare for tournaments at all, if there aren’t enough people who buy this stage.
The latest egregious controversy happened in a tournament itself. A Chinese player named XCC was suddenly disqualified from the Thaiger Uppercut 2024 tournament held in Bangkok. Apparently Bandai Namco eSports had rules about players only coming from specific countries for local tournaments.
The issue is that XCC wasn’t told he was qualified when the tournament started. He qualified to the Top 8 before the disqualification.
The end result of all these piling controversies is that Tekken 8 has been massively downvoted on Steam. As of this writing, 1,948 new negative reviews have dropped its user review rating to mixed.
We do have at least one positive update to share to all of this. The official Bandai Namco Esports account has revealed that they will allow Chinese players to compete in an upcoming tournament called The Last Chance Qualifier, and they have reached out to XCC so he can be there, even covering his expenses. They also promise to review their rules for the future.
While Bandai Namco seems to have made proper amends so far, there may be no easy way to resolve the game’s other issues. Apparently Project Tekken head Katsuhiro Harada himself implied on social media that other people at Bandai Namco are making these unpopular decisions about the game’s monetization.
Tekken 8 seemed to have reemerged as one of the big fighting game franchises that has finally gone mainstream. We would really like to see Bandai Namco to get it back on track, but they have to make proper amends to do that. With Project Tekken seemingly struggling to balance the need to satisfy fans and make the game more profitable, there’s no clear path forward, at least for now.
You can watch theScore esports’ video explaining this story below.
