On September 30, Tekken 8 players with the game’s Character Year 1 Pass gained access to Heihachi Mishima as a playable character, while everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow, October 3, to unlock the new fighter. While the majority of the game’s community is excited about the new addition, the paid DLC Genmaji Stage is seeing plenty of backlash.
Previously, with the addition of fighter Lidia Sobieska, the Sea Side Resort stage was also added for free. However, while this new Heihachi update brings a new story chapter for free, the new battleground costs real money.
Katsushiro Harada, the head of development on Tekken 8, recently took to X to address the drama.
“I understand that the community has some questions about the release of this stage DLC. As the person in charge of the Tekken franchise, I apologize,” Harada began.
“The Tekken project is divided into two companies: a game development studio and a publisher that is responsible for game sales. As some of you may know, I moved to the Development Studio side a few years ago, and have been focusing on maximizing the quality of the content/Tech/Graphics etc.
I think that there were parts of the process that did not take the Tekken community’s opinion into account. I think I failed to create an organizational structure that would allow me to oversee things beyond my own position. From now on, I will review this structure and change it to one that values the community as it did in the past.”
Tekken 8 was released on January 26, 2024 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Extensive updates are planned, including more DLC characters and crossovers. In March, Eddy Gordo was introduced as the first DLC character, followed by Lidia Sobieska in July.
