Opinion: Tekken 8 Season 2 Was a Conscious Decision by Bandai Namco

I’ve been a staunch supporter of almost anything Tekken related for pretty much my entire life, having played since Tekken 2‘s PlayStation port dropped back in 1995. Even with the Street Fighters and Fatal Furies of the world, Tekken’s slower, movement-heavy identity always caught my attention more than anything else on the market.

Nothing solidified my love for this kind of game design more than Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, which to this day is still the GOAT Tekken title in my eyes. It was minimalistic and modest by today’s standards; there was no Rage or Heat System, no extremely lengthy combos that were both damaging and had good wall carry, and most importantly, no forced 50/50 mixups every five seconds. Just pure, cerebral, Good Ass Tekken™.

Unfortunately for myself and basically the entire Tekken community, developer and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment have completely doubled down on that last point especially. Even members of the fighting game community at large that may not necessarily play the game have caught wind of Tekken 8 Season 2 and the massive balance patch that came along with it — and how everyone and their grandmother is pissed off about the direction the patch took.

The Defense is the Friends We Made Along the Way

I’ll get straight to the point here: Michael Murray, Katsuhiro Harada, and Kohei “Nakatsu” Ikeda lied to everyone in the community with straight faces. 12 days ago from the time of writing, the Evolution Championship Series official YouTube channel posted an “interview” with all three of them before Season 2 dropped on April 1st. There, Nakatsu in particular told everyone that the dev team was going to improve the 3D aspect of Tekken 8, allowing players to use lateral movement to more effectively play against the more aggressive style of the game.

This had everyone buzzing with excitement, especially professional player and content creator Philip “PhiDX” Lam, who posted a video thereafter about how the devs were finally listening to community feedback regarding the game’s design. The video was actually a direct response to Bandai Namco announcing that they would be walking back a controversial change — that being the addition of chip damage on throw breaks. But overall, he seemed pretty happy that it seemed like the devs actually took criticism well and were willing to admit they were wrong.

Naturally, this made PhiDX and everyone else think that there was hope for Season 2 and Tekken 8 returning to a more traditional style when it came to its core gameplay. Personally, I was more skeptical about the promises the devs made in the interview than PhiDX was, but it was never anything beyond just cautious optimism.

After all, all three of them went on the record assuring the community that they were being heard. So guess what happened? The patch notes dropped on the 1st, and immediately we were all met with the horrific realization that Nakatsu and company had not only lied through their teeth about “improving defense”, but they actually made the game an even more egregious 50/50 s***show.

Tracken 8

Where do I even begin? The entire cast is now more homogenized than ever before, because the developers seem to be hell-bent on removing each character’s unique weaknesses — and with it, the flavor that makes each Tekken character unique to begin with. Most if not every character in previous titles had specific counters to them, whether that be lateral movement, evading certain strings by crouching or low parrying, keeping them out with long range moves, and much, much more.

Season 2 has done away with this almost entirely, by way of giving everyone in the roster a bunch of moves that cover all of these options at the same time. The primary culprit in this regard is the addition of even more plus-on-block mid attacks that also track lateral movement really well — which have historically been extremely rare in Tekken.

This is a video game.https://t.co/TzWTnS1KZz pic.twitter.com/FBrBr9lGES

— InVaines 20z (@InVaines) April 4, 2025

And this is for good reason. You can’t evade mids by crouching, because mids must be blocked standing. You can’t sidestep against moves that track you when you do, because that’s the point of allowing them to track in the first place. You can’t really mash your way out of a situation where your opponent is at a frame advantage, because their attacks will beat yours if you try to just fight your way out.

There is almost no counterplay to these kinds of all-in-one moves, which in turn hinders creativity in terms of finding solutions to them. Before Season 2, it was possible to make decisions in such a way that you shift the risk/reward ratio in your favor as the defender, with the very options that I mentioned above.

Do the Stance Dance

Characters also received even more moves that have plus-on-block stance transitions, which of course lead to nearly endless 50/50 situations. The most infuriating example of this has to be the third hit of Jack-8’s new Jab Elbow > Make Some Noise string (2,1,uf+1+2) being completely uninterruptible when the first two hits are blocked, despite it leaving Jack at a massive +8 frame advantage.

No, sidestepping doesn’t work because it tracks to both sides, and neither does crouching because the third hit is a mid. It jumps over lows too, because of course it does. The only way to bail yourself out is to use a fast enough power crush move to armor through the third hit, which isn’t even a real solution because Jack can just stop the string short.

Worse still, Jack can f***ing loop Make Some Noise once he’s in Gamma Howl, because for some reason beyond human comprehension, the devs decided that he can do Make Some Noise from this stance. I mean, just look at what’s happening in this clip:

MAKE SOME NOISE!!! https://t.co/O67JtPSF7L pic.twitter.com/KiMb3t6qvA

— Landon D (@Landon_D_) April 2, 2025

Now, I will admit that this move is going to get fixed per an emergency patch scheduled for mid to late April. Firstly, it’s absurd that the emergency patch isn’t coming out like, right now. Isn’t that the point of an emergency patch to begin with? Secondly, how the hell did this move even make it past playtesting? Anyone with even half a functioning brain cell could immediately tell this move was problematic from the outset.

In any case, it is clear to me that the result is a disconnect between what the community wants and the tuning results.
I understand that whatever words I may be accused by the community about it, that is not the essential issue and it is not the time to worry about it.
We have… https://t.co/gDG0reL6DJ

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) April 3, 2025

Regardless of whether or not it’s going to get patched out, this is just depressingly emblematic of what is wrong with Season 2 just from a design perspective. How any of this ever gets approved and pushed to the live build of the game is beyond me, and this is just one example out of many. What part of all this is even in line with “we buffed defense”? There seems to be just a massive disconnect between what we as fans want out of a Tekken game and what Nakatsu and company want to make, something that Harada actually said himself.

They Know What They’re Doing

Thing is, I don’t believe for a second that this is just all a big misunderstanding between the community and Bandai Namco. Tekken 8 has been a hyper-aggressive title from the outset, so I don’t think that this is just a case of gross incompetence on the part of the developers. No, this is what they think is best for the series, and it shows.

And how can I not lean towards this opinion? The devs themselves are ridiculously unprofessional when it comes to addressing criticism, with Murray and Harada in particular choosing to berate players for their warranted complaints instead of responding how any sane executive would in this case. Murray has even gone as far as blocking dissenting opinions, like how he blocked Tekken streamer “mrsplaystuff” yesterday for that very reason.

Well at least i know my opinions were seen.

Also people are allowed to block whomever they want but it’s still a pity for me.

I thought I was able to express myself in a way that was criticising the game and not a person on the team. pic.twitter.com/7RQADFXTsz

— mrsplaystuff (@mrsplaystuff) April 3, 2025

Going to war with your playerbase is just not it. When the negative feedback coming from the community is just this overwhelming, it’s a sign for the developers to take a step back and realize that the product that they made is not what their customers want. It should be okay to admit that they failed in that sense. But no, they seem to be more interested in “dunking” on their critics rather than actually going in the direction that players want them to.

Sadly, the game is probably permanently damaged at this point. It’s crystal clear that this dumpster fire is pretty much what the developers set out to create in the first place. They’ve spent far too much time and resources implementing all these changes nobody asked for, so it’s almost certainly too much to expect them to revert the entire game back to Season 1.

An Unrecognizable Mess

To conclude this rant — which I’m sure isn’t just me being an old head yearning for the days of yore because plenty of others share my take on this entire fiasco — it’s discouraging to see one of the most important video game franchises in my life become like this. Tekken 8 Season 2 has changed the game irreparably, and definitely not for the better.

I understand the importance of building a game for enjoyment of all skill levels.

So I don't understand why they make these changes that reduces the number of "good" options to pick to survive.

I don't know how I would tell a less experienced player to play against this. pic.twitter.com/aPwscQ1ftl

— Speedkicks (@Speedkicks) April 1, 2025

And for what, even? Murray mentioned in the Evo interview that Nakatsu’s philosophy wanted to make a fighting game where new players could feel like they could beat veterans. I’m all for allowing newbies to enjoy what once was a rich and highly fulfilling fighting game franchise, but when they’re forced to hold all the braindead Season 2 mixups that they themselves can apply endlessly onto their hapless opponents, I’m not sure how Nakatsu expects them to stick around.

Conflating aggression with canned mixups and nigh-inescapable interactions is the biggest sin this game ever committed, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever repent and atone for that sin at this point. Season 2 is just too damning in this regard, and it might be too late to turn this ship around. Fixing the Jack-8 string is a start, but there are way too many things that need to be reverted or outright removed in order to get this game to where it needs to be.

The ball is in the dev team’s court. Only time will tell if they make the right decisions from here on — but based on their awful responses to criticism and their bold-faced lies coming out of the Evo interview, I don’t really trust them anymore.