In many ways, Tekken 8 is the ideal fighting game. After nearly three decades and a handful of entries into the series, developer Bandai Namco and series director Katsuhiro Harada have boiled the series’ formula down to a science. Offensive play and tactics feel balanced but rewarding, and matches look better than ever, thanks to a massive visual upgrade across PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Tekken is one of the most beloved fighting game series of all time. This 3D fighting game blends martial arts and technical close-quarters combat with cartoonishly over-the-top characters and storylines to deliver a fighting game truly unlike any other with a flow and feel all its own. But in the roughly seven years since the last Tekken game, fighting games have seen a renaissance. Even if its fighting system’s a well-oiled machine, nearly every aspect of the ideal big-budget fighting game has shifted. From different approaches to online play and multiplayer suites to expanded and improved single-player content, the landscape has changed. Thankfully, so has Tekken.
With a thrilling combat system and tons of engaging content for newcomers and competitive players alike, Tekken 8 is one of the best fighting games you can buy.
What we liked about it
Learning Tekken
Even within the often complex and challenging world of fighting games, Tekken has a reputation for being highly dense and technical. Every character has at least double the number of moves found in most other fighting games like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, many with specific combinations of inputs that you need to execute quickly without missing a beat. Layering a complex 3D movement system and a 32-character roster on top of that only adds to the vast ocean of possibilities and complexities at your fingertips.
Because of all this, Tekken might sound daunting to approach. But on top of being very fun to just mash buttons in and play casually with other people who don’t know much about how to hit a combo, Tekken 8 does a fantastic job of letting players of any skill level dive into its pool of characters and combos at their own pace, thanks to a wealth of helpful tools and modes.
Arcade Quest, which is a single-player story mode where you climb the ranks as a Tekken player in various fictional arcades, is the best way for newcomers to try to crack this game’s tough outer shell. It slowly introduces you to new mechanics and abilities by making you execute them on a training dummy to make sure you have them down pat. Then you’re tasked with playing against a handful of opponents with your newfound knowledge. It’s a great cycle that emphasizes learning the game and establishing good habits.
But even experienced players have some great tools at their disposal aside from the requisite training mode and combo trials that should be standard in every fighting game. Tekken 8 introduces two absolutely groundbreaking new features that I hope become standard in the genre. First is the Ghost mode, which allows you to play against an AI that’s been trained to fight like you. It’s a spectacular tool that not only matches you up against a player at your skill level but can expose critical weaknesses and patterns in your play that you can learn to exploit or improve on.
Similarly, the My Replay feature allows you to revisit previous matches and analyze your performance, even going as far as letting you assume control of your character for brief stints. It even gives suggestions for how you can improve on handling an interaction that might have lost you the game.
Moreso than nearly any other fighting game that I’ve played, Tekken 8 gives you the tools to succeed. All you need to do is put in the work and you’ll be rewarded. For all intents and purposes, this is my first Tekken game. While I’ve dabbled in other entries in the series (mostly Tekkens 3 and 7), I never really took the time to learn much more than a few basic attacks. In Tekken 8, I felt rewarded and encouraged for wanting to learn, and before I knew it, I was going toe-to-toe with other reviewers who had the game early and actually holding my own. I wasn’t taking games left and right, but I was doing well enough to feel a sense of improvement and accomplishment. And thanks to the tools Tekken 8 put at my disposal, I know I’ll find success.
The story
At its best, Tekken 8’s story is peak action camp. Goofy, over-the-top cutscenes act as flashy, gorgeous vehicles for fights to break out. But if you’re not caught up on the latest chapters in the Mishima clan’s saga, Tekken 8’s got you covered with a full-on recap included in the story section of the game. There’s also a truncated version of this recap available on YouTube that features a recap of the series’ most important moments, narrated by Brian Cox of “Succession” fame. This roughly five-hour narrative experience doesn’t live up to Arcade Quest in terms of introducing you to the ins and outs of Tekken. In fact, I don’t recommend playing this as your only foray into The King of Iron Fist Tournament if you’ve never played before, but it’s still loads of fun, even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel.
Online play
Online multiplayer is one of the biggest hurdles facing the fighting game genre. Even compared to other competitive games and genres like shooters and multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs), fighting games stand in a league of their own in relying on perfectly timed inputs. Even the slightest amount of delay can make a world of difference. There’s just less room for poorly made online play to hide in a fighting game.
I’m pleased to say that, based on my early experience with the game, Tekken 8’s online plays like a dream. With settings to guarantee that you won’t be matched with other players on a bad connection and an upgrade to rollback netcode (a type of online connection meant to minimize laggy gameplay, and that’s become standard in the genre), I didn’t notice a single dropped frame or any kind of lag. That said, it’s important to note that my experience with online multiplayer is based on matches with other journalists and content creators, many of whom are playing with above-average internet connections, so it’s possible that Tekken 8’s online play won’t hold up as well on a weaker connection.
The cast
When I start out a fighting game but have trouble settling on a main character, that means one of two things: Either I don’t like it or I enjoy playing as so many of the characters in the roster that I can’t decide. I’m thrilled to say that I feel like a kid in a candy store looking at Tekken 8’s character select screen. Whether it’s Victor’s teleportation-based, sword-wielding shenanigans or Leroy’s masterful Wing Chun skills, each character shines in their own distinct fighting style.
The fighting
Tekken’s nearly 30 years old. Starting out as Namco’s answer to Sega’s Virtua Fighter, this series has come so far. Over handfuls of mainline iterations, crossover and spinoffs, Bandai Namco and The Tekken Project are old pros at this point. There are a few new changes and additions that make different parts of the battle system pop, like the Heat System that adds new, powerful moves to every character’s kit. It’s a useful tool that rewards knowledgeable play but still gives newer players a few more tools at their disposal.
Special Style
One key aspect of bringing fighting games into the contemporary mainstream is making them easier to pick up and play. Tekken isn’t necessarily impossible to just pick up and play, but it’s not simple by any means. Special Style is Tekken 8’s attempt at creating a simplified means of controlling its combatants. Adding a universal flow to each character, Special Style controls make it much easier to pull off combos.
What we didn’t like about it
The online lobbies
Online lobbies in fighting games are best kept simple. The more steps it takes to navigate, control and set up, the worse they become. And while Tekken 8’s online functionality seems beyond reproach, its lobby system isn’t. Private lobbies are missing some basic features; you can’t even spectate matches in your lobby or pull up the training mode to breeze through some combo trials or work on a new bread-and-butter combo between matches. Instead, you’re forced to just sit and wait your turn. In the face of Tekken 8’s myriad quality-of-life improvements, it’s frustrating and confusing.
The same could be said about Tekken 8’s public online multiplayer. While there are options to just search for casual and ranked matches the old-fashioned way by selecting each option from a menu, players can also enter the Tekken Fight Lobby, which turns the online multiplayer lobby into an actual hub world that players can navigate using an avatar. It’s an unnecessarily complicated approach that adds far too much bloat to the online experience. Even if it’s navigable through a pause menu, finding matches and challenging players you find in the lobby is far more complicated than it needs to be. You might recognize this lobby system from similar appearances in games such as Dragon Ball FighterZ.
Bottom line
Tekken 8 is one of my favorite fighting games. Its characters and base gameplay alone are spectacularly fun and engaging, but what sets Tekken 8 above so many others is its lack of resistance for newcomers looking to learn more than just the simplest combos. As a longtime casual fan of the fighting genre, Tekken’s always seemed like an intimidating beast, one that would take dozens of hours to tame, let alone master. Tekken 8 takes those expectations and turns them on their head, thanks to its treasure trove of helpful tools, and Tekken 8 turns this tiger into a housecat. I haven’t been so excited to continue to learn and grow in a fighting game since my early days of playing Super Smash Bros. competitively.
