It looks like it didn’t take Bandai Namco long to confirm those release dates. The company made it official at the Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023 event where they revealed that the previously leaked date of January 26, 2024 was in fact the release date for Tekken 8. The company also unveiled a new trailer which also showed a brand new gameplay single player mode dubbed Arcade Quest. They also confirmed the return of some fighters such as Shaheen, Kuma, Yoshimitsu, Dragunov, Steve Fox, and Leo, all of which have become fan favorites over the years.
As seen in the trailer, the Arcade Quest revolves around the player and places you directly in to the Tekken arcade competitive scene. You’ll create a chibi-style avatar and take on different competitors with an in-game arcade setting. You’ll also be able to customize some of the settings and open areas to create a unique experience. This, if anything, is the most direct callback to the old style of playing fighting games in arcades during the late 1980’s all the way to the glory days of the 1990’s. The Tekken titles started out there as well, and it’s wonderful to see Harada and company add this into the main game.
As if that wasn’t enough, the trailer also stated that a total of 32 fighters will be readily available to play with right at launch. That is a massive amount of characters to offer right off the bat, and this doesn’t include the upcoming Year 1 Pass which will have four new DLC characters. Tekken 8 will also come in four, yes four separate editions. There’s the Standard Edition with the base game. The Deluxe Edition comes with the game, the Year 1 Pass as well as the Gold Suit Pack. Then there’s the Ultimate Edition which as everything the Deluxe has and avatar skins for Kazuya, Jin and Jun as well as the Classic Tekken 32 T-shirt Set.
Lastly, the Premium Collector’s Edition comes with everything from the previous three versions, as well as a 25 cm-tall Jin statue, a steel bookcase, eight glossy collectible cards, and Leroy Smith’s ring with a carrying pouch and a special arcade token. That is a lot to take in for this release, but either way you extrapolate it, Bandai Namco isn’t messing around. Each edition will cost $69.99, $99.99, $109.99, and $299 respectively.
Tekken 8 will officially launch on January 26, 2024, for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/Series S, and PC.