When Tekken 8 was first announced, the team at Bandai Namco made it clear that they were doing everything they could to use the PS5 and its hardware to bring out the best in the game. The very first trailer highlighted this principle when they showed off how the characters moved, how things like rain ran down their bodies and the damage that the characters would take over time. But even now, the team continues talking about how they used the expansive PS5 graphics capabilities to deliver something special. During a chat with the PlayStation Blog, Director Kohei Ikeda discussed their actions.
“With Tekken 8, our goal was to replicate the intricacies of the human body, such as the stretching and contraction of muscles and sweat trickling down the skin. For example, the bone structure required to move a playable character in Tekken 8 is more than double that of the previous game. The PS5’s processing performance made these implementations possible and was successful in replicating more natural muscle movements.
Furthermore, not only the sweat but flushed skin, dirt, and the blood vessels on strained muscles are rendered in real-time and transition seamlessly depending on what is happening in-game. These effects enable a more authentic and immersive gaming experience. The advanced visuals are achieved through smooth 60 fps that fully utilize PS5’s GPU processing power.”
That might sound like a lot of effort just to make the game look better, but that’s honestly the point. They wanted to make the game feel as realistic as possible while delivering an impressive amount of impact with each move that you make. The director further noted that they had certain “pillars” for development, including Haptic Feedback. They wanted nothing more than for players to “feel” the force done to their characters or by their characters onto others. That desire applies not only to the versus matches you’ll do against other players but to the story mode, too.
The team also used 3D audio techniques to help make the sounds of each fight feel as impactful as possible. They even went so far as to note that it will feel “lifelike” given all the layers and details that they put into it.
What this all boils down to is that the team focused on making this game look and sound as incredible as possible and blowing past what they did in past games. We’ll see how well it worked on January 26th.
