Since its humble beginnings in 1994, the ‘Tekken’ series has been one of the premiere fighting games at the arcades, home consoles and esports events. With its large cast of culturally diverse characters representing various forms of martial arts, Tekken has always gone above and beyond to give fans the most in-depth fighting game with the biggest variety of moves to pull off devastating combos and score the K.O. to claim victory. After the success of ‘Tekken 7’ in 2015 which only got bigger and better with each DLC update, the stage is set for ‘Tekken 8’ to break out of its chains and punch its way to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Set six months after the events of Tekken 7, which saw Heihachi Mishima meet his fate at the hands of his son Kazuya, the story of the Mishima bloodline is far from over. The family feud continues with Kazuya Mishima and his son Jin Kazama, as they meet for another showdown in a big city. With Jin trying to not submit to his devil gene and Kazuya relishing in his devil form, their latest father-and-son quarrel becomes catastrophic and even threatens the lives of those around them. With no other option, Jin must embrace the devil within and finally put an end to this decades-long rivalry.

While the premise sounds like the epic conclusion to the game’s story, it’s actually only the beginning. The epic battle between Kazuya and Jin is just chapter one of story mode titled ‘The Dark Awakens’, and it sets the tone for what’s to come. An in-depth story mode was also featured in Tekken 7 but focused primarily on Heihachi and his relationships with his wife Kazumi, his son Kazuya, his grandson Jin and even featured Akuma from the Street Fighter series. Tekken 8’s story focuses on the Mishima family and features other characters in bigger roles this time.

The Dark Awakens has 15 chapters, where players will fight as Jin and other characters. After tearing up the city with his son, Kazuya announces the next King of Iron Fist Tournament where the winner will become the new head of the Mishima Zaibatsu, but he has ulterior motives. Players will be in for a wild ride filled with battles of epic proportions, full CGI cinematic cutscenes, BIG surprises, callbacks to past games and even multiple endings.

The cutscenes are a marvel to behold on-screen with photorealistic graphics and transitions smoothly straight into gameplay. There’ll be more than just one-on-one battles, as there’ll also be some quick time events as well; something that will really please fans of Tekken 3, 4 and 6 on console, which hopefully will become a separate mode in a future update because of how fun it is. The story of Tekken 8 is most certainly its best yet.

Tekken 8 has a base roster of 32 characters with many returning combatants and some new faces entering the fray. Many fan favourites make their return including Kazuya Mishima, Jin Kazama, Paul Phoenix, Marshall Law, Ling Xiaoyu, King, Yoshimitsu, Nina Williams, Bryan Fury and Hwoarang just to name a few. Jun Kazama, the late wife of Kazuya and mother of Jin, who has been deceased since between Tekken 2 and Tekken 3, also mysteriously returns. How is she still alive after all this time? There’s only one way to find out, but longtime fans will appreciate her return and be eager to find out her purpose in The Dark Awakens.

Brand new characters in the series include Azucena, Victor Chevalier and Reina. Azucena hails from Peru, who mixes her dancing with her MMA background and enters the tournament in search of the perfect blend, to promote her family’s brand of coffee. Victor is a legendary war veteran from France and a super spy with the United Nations, who plays an important role in Story Mode. He is armed with a pistol, knives and a katana-like sword, and his fighting style looks like it takes a lot of inspiration from ‘Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’. Reina is the most mysterious of the three, as she seems to be connected with the Mishima family in some way and even uses some familiar Mishima Style Karate moves along with her Taidō background. Rumours have been circulating about who she actually is, which only thickens the plot even more.

In ‘Character Episodes’, each character has their own stories separate from The Dark Awakens. After selecting a character, an opening movie will be played explaining their reason and motive for entering the tournament. Some of their matches will have unique dialogue and a full CGI animated ending movie will be unlocked, showing a what-if scenario if they were to win the tournament. It’s a massive improvement from the underwhelming endings in Tekken 7. Every cutscene unlocked in Character Episodes and The Dark Awakens can be viewed in the Gallery, along with various classic Tekken art.

All the returning characters have received a big upgrade to their appearances, move sets and have all-new Rage Arts, but feel just as good as ever. The three new fighters are also a lot of fun to play and will likely become instant favourites. Unfortunately, a lot of other fan-favourite characters miss out, at least for now. The Season 1 Pass will include four DLC characters with the first being Eddy Gordo and the other three yet to be revealed.

It’ll be interesting to see if they’ll be fan favourites from past games, more new fighters or guest characters. They’re set to be released during each season of the year and fans will be waiting with great anticipation to see who they will be. Unfortunately, as said by series producer Katsuhiro Harada, Heihachi Mishima is officially dead and will not be returning, though only time will tell, as this isn’t the first time, we’ve heard the statement “Heihachi Mishima is dead!”

A new gameplay mechanic is ‘Special Style’, which simplifies the moves and even combos. This feature can be switched on and off during a match with the press of a button. It has been a controversial topic, much like with ‘Street Fighter 6’s Modern Controls which also simplified all the moves. Veteran players may feel that all their years of mastering the moves and perfecting the combos are being undermined. This does, however, make the game more beginner-friendly to casual players and newcomers, and gives them that good feeling of pulling off some big moves. This may even inspire them to play with normal controls as they’ll have more variety, freedom and control in how they play. Thankfully unlike Street Fighter 6, Special Style doesn’t give any player an unfair advantage over Tekken veterans.

Characters with chain throws such as King and Nina, are now much easier to pull off as well. In past games they needed players to memorise a ton of button inputs to achieve the full set of throws, but now some of them can be done just by tapping a single button. Much like Special Style, this makes it easily accessible for casual fans, but longtime players may feel like it’s a low blow to all their years of memorising all the button inputs and earning that badge of honour. Of course, it takes more than easier chain throws to be good at King, Nina and other grapplers who may get added later. Perhaps based on player feedback, the old system for chain throws may get brought back or become optional.

The Heat System is another of Tekken 8’s newest gameplay mechanics. It’s represented by a meter under the health bar and when activated, allows the attacker to extend their combos and turn the tide of battle. This feature enhances certain moves and has its own combos that when timed correctly, can deliver a ton of damage to the opponent. Pro players haven’t been the most receptive to the Heat System based on their feedback over the various beta tests throughout 2023, but the team at Bandai Namco have worked hard, making this a prominent feature of Tekken 8. Even if not, everyone will agree, it’s safe to say the latest update to the Heat System is a great addition to the combat mechanics and adds even more hype to an exciting match.

Tekken 8 also introduces Arcade Quest, a single-player campaign with its own story that centres around you. Here you’ll create and customise an avatar based on yourself or make up your own character and take them through a world of in-game arcades and esports tournaments. Your goal is to enter the ‘Tekken World Tour’ and become the world champion, starting in a small arcade to learn the ropes of the latest game with helpful tutorials, and working your way up to the big stage to take on the best players in the world. You’ll also make some in-game friends with other players who each have their own reasons for playing the game, and meet Orochi, an arrogant pro player and main antagonist. With real-life arcades becoming a thing of the past, Arcade Quest aims to recreate that same feeling of starting in a small arcade, travelling to bigger arcades and entering tournaments to become the King of the Iron Fist.

Arcade Quest may not accurately recreate the exact same feeling, but it’s still a fun mode to play. Players can walk around different arcades, look at posters and collectibles on display, listen to comments from other players and competitors, challenge them to try to increase your rank, unlock items and enter tournaments. Each opponent plays very differently from each other thanks to the Ghost A.I., which will keep players on their toes because they can’t exploit them like the regular CPU opponents.

Past Tekken games and other fighting games have had systems that try to mimic real players, but nothing as accurate as what Tekken 8 has. Players go into ‘Super Ghost Battles’ where the AI can learn how they play and recreate it, from their combos, how they defend and counter and even their mannerisms. In my personal experience, I’ve faced A.I. opponents who faked attacks, tried to psych me out, did their own combos, spammed the same move and more.

Players will be able to download Ghost AI data of real-life players, even the pros. This is the closest to taking on the likes of Knee and Arslan Ash, and players can even test their luck against themselves. This is by far the best A.I. system that mimics real players, is completely ethical (unlike other A.I. programs) and will only help players improve their skills.

The graphics utilise Unreal Engine 5, making everything look incredibly lifelike. From the moment the title screen appears, a close-up of an in-game model of Kazuya can be seen. This is the moment it becomes obvious that when it comes to graphics, Tekken 8 means business and the graphics during gameplay look just as good. Everything from the texture of the skin, material and stitching in the clothes, the stages with everything happening in the background, and even muscles flexing looks so photo-realistic. The art style of Tekken 8 is exuding with personality. This is for sure the best-looking Tekken game to date.

The Tekken series has always had an absolutely banging soundtrack with each game and Tekken 8 is no different. Each stage has its own unique tracks that perfectly suit the environment and adds more hype and excitement to a match. Just like Tekken 7, a Jukebox mode is also available to customise the music of each stage and even the menus, with tracks from every Tekken game in history.

The game also stars legendary ring announcer, Lenne Hardt, most famous for her work in Pride FC and other MMA promotions, and even voiced Anna Williams in past games. Her spectacular ring-announcing voice was featured in each character trailer and can be heard in certain segments of The Dark Awakens and Character Episodes, hyping up the matches.

The highly requested minigame, ‘Tekken Ball’ makes its long-awaited return. First introduced in the console version of ‘Tekken 3’, again on the Wii U edition of ‘Tekken Tag Tournament 2’ and finally in Tekken 8. This takes the battle to the beach with a choice of different balls between both combatants, who must utilise their moves to knock the ball into their opponents to deal damage. The stronger the attack, the stronger the ball becomes as it’s hurled into the opponent. Just like in the older games, Tekken Ball will offer hours of fun, is a nice change of pace from the main game and can even be played online.

Tekken 8 is actually the first game in the mainline series to go straight to consoles and not have an arcade release. This means that online play must be better than ever, and Bandai Namco is delivering on that. Past Tekken games used the delayed base netcode, which worked fairly well when matched up with opponents closer to your area, but the rollback netcode makes the online experience better than ever.

In my personal experience, the matches I had played very smoothly with very little lag. It still struggles when matching up with opponents further across the world and if they’re playing wirelessly (also because of Australia’s not-so-good internet), but even with that, there’s still a very noticeable improvement. This is also the first time that Tekken has included cross-play, allowing matches between players on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, opening it up to even more opponents to match up with. The online experience in the latest entry of the Tekken series is the best it’s ever been.

Before players have their first match online, they’ll be matched up against a CPU opponent and will be assigned a rank based on how they play. This helps separate the veterans from the casual players, so newcomers won’t feel discouraged after getting dominated online. Just like in previous games, players can try to go up the ranks, have casual matches or play in a lobby. Tekken Lounge is a new online mode that has everything mentioned but in a large virtual arcade, where players using their avatar can chat and challenge each other to matches, like the Battle Hub in Street Fighter 6.

“For as long as there is Tekken, your story will continue”. Katsuhiro Harada and the team at Bandai Namco have been taking all the steps in the right direction and Tekken’s future is looking more electrifying than ever. The story is really intriguing, new fighters are a ton of fun, the graphics are looking immaculate, new gameplay mechanics add so much to the fights and the online experience is smoother than ever and with crossplay. With Tekken 8 finally breaking out of its chains, it’s time to “Get ready for the next battle” and become the King of the Iron Fist Tournament!

Written by: Sammy Hanson