Tekken 8 has been the subject of a couple of our articles lately and it’s sad to say that it isn’t because the game is doing well. While on the surface things seem to be going swimmingly for Bandai Namco’s flagship fighting game the reality is that cracks are beginning to appear under the surface. The community in general seems to not be a big fan of the gameplay changes, but on a level more about the product itself it really seems like Tekken 8 is looking to take another pound of flesh from its consumers.
It was stated in our previous article over this subject that many in the community did not care for the addition of the battle pass, as the game was already priced at a high $70, but with more details about the pass and the accompanying Eddy patch the news just goes from bad to worse. As shown above, the way “coins” work as a currency in the game means that players do not have the option to purchase 600 coins to get the battle pass, and instead will have to spend $9.99 to get 1050 coins and be leftover with 450 coins they never needed. This model is absolutely predatory, and it’s one that other fighting games such as Mortal Kombat 1 and Street Fighter 6 also feature, and Tekken 8 is following suit. While players were already up in arms about having to pay more money for costumes it looks like the battle pass just adds items that, well, nobody asked for. Such as a plain white default Unity engine ball as a premium item.
The ball has become a small meme within the community. But even beyond this the latest patch seems to just break some of the game’s functionality in general. On Reddit, they’ve reported that the replay feature doesn’t seem to work if you’re using Eddy, the latest DLC character, not to mention the game seems to not register wall splats in certain scenarios.
And more drama comes down the pipeline daily, this isn’t even getting into the rampant cheating and rage quitting problems that have plagued the game since day 1 and have yet to be properly addressed. Overall, Tekken 8 is in extremely bad shape, with even the top players of the game, such as Tekken 7 Tekken World Tour champion Arslan Ash, coming out to mock its state. If Bandai Namco wants to correct course before this ship sinks entirely, they’re going to have to work overtime.