I’ve been playing Tekken on and off since Tekken 4. No previous entry was flawless, but Tekken 8 suffers from a fundamental identity crisis. Historically, Tekken stood out because characters had clear, distinct weaknesses. Players were rewarded for navigating match-ups using core mechanics—movement, defensive positioning, and calculated offense.

Tekken 8 feels closer to a standard 2D fighter where the first person to enforce a forced mix-up wins. Aggression isn't just viable; it’s overwhelmingly favored over defensive play. Instead of the deep, expressive back-and-forth that made earlier titles special, attacking feels like running through a flowchart, while defending feels like playing a gacha game.

We started seeing hints of this mindless repetition late in Tekken 7, but many of us hoped Tekken 8 would course-correct. Instead, it doubled down on high-variance 50/50s. With Harada’s departure and Murray leading, the series feels like a shadow of its former self, trading core mechanical depth for artificial hype. As someone who loved this franchise for two decades, I want to like this game—but I can’t recommend investing time into it in its current state.

I started my Tekken journey with Tekken Tag Tournament 1 in the PS2 days. The direction Tekken is going is pretty grim with this iteration. As I went beyond middle ranks online I realized the new core mechanics that were proudly advertised by Namco were getting in the way of me having fun. It's starting to become a game type it shouldn't become in the first place.

Instead of boring you with technical stuff I want to share a comment that really spoke to me by YouTube user @hey-its-ae

"Man. My husband grew up with Tekken. Loves Tekken, could pick out a Tekken song in the first five seconds and tell you the exact game and stage where it came from. We bonded over Tekken 7. He taught me to play in part by writing out lists of moves to practice and why, and combos to try which he arranged from easiest to hardest. I think I still have it saved somewhere. We went to our first EVO in 2018 and cheered for Lil Majin from the front row. You can literally spot us in a lot of footage from those matches. Watching him experience T8, a game he had 400 hours in last year alone, has been nothing short of depressing. He plays every single day. He is always labbing. But I can’t remember the last time he went online with it. Maybe before or shortly after EVO 2024 when he competed. And seeing him go from so excited to play Tekken after work every day to just something he turns on for mindless background noise to keep his hands busy… I will always have hope for Tekken, for his sake. Because this just sucks."

I should add at the end of the day, Tekken will still be my favorite fighting game. I think it's way more fun than anything on the market. But we also need to voice our opinions when the developers are determined to ruin what we have. Remember season 3 promises?

Deh