Bandai Namco’s flagship fighting game franchise, Tekken, released its latest installment in Tekken 8 this week on January 24^th. The game has been met with the gaming equivalent of a standing ovation, with many players praising its graphics, its story, and of course its gameplay. Over the course of release weekend Tekken 8 peaked with a very impressive 46,139 players. In fact, the amount of players playing on release day was so overwhelming that it temporarily broke both Steamcharts as well as Tekken 8’s own servers for a bit, but now that things are smoothed out it’s easy sailing for the fighting game icon.

Of course, as in any Tekken game the first thing to hit the meme feed is the customized characters. Tekken 7 featured Akuma with a shotgun but the customizations this time around show us different variations of Resident Evil characters as well as goofy original creations, such as the customized costumes emulating Drake which have made the rounds.

Street Fighter mind games: “Is he gonna go for a high or a low?”

Tekken mind games: “YO IS THAT DRAKE??” https://t.co/nLcYGUaw4r

— Chris Voiceman (@ChrisVoiceman) January 26, 2024

And of course, ever eager to throw himself into the conversation online series director Katsuhiro Harada addressed the overwhelming requests for guest characters in Tekken, starting with everyone’s favorite Final Fantasy 7 character Tifa, with his usual humor.

We all know she is attractive and I understand that.
But as yet we have not decided anything about guest characters etc. https://t.co/dkuMm1pnGG

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) January 26, 2024

Even the tournament scene has wasted no time in jumping onto the hype train, with Tekken 8’s first tournament happening this weekend at the Frosty Faustings event, which saw player Sicoby take the first tournament with iconic character King.

All in all, it’s been a pretty hectic weekend for Tekken 8, but the good kind of hectic where everything heard is nothing but a celebration for the game’s release. Tekken 7 retired at around 9 years old, so if past performances are any indication then we have a good decade or so of Tekken 8 to look forward to. And speaking of celebration, there was also an insane firework performance celebrating Tekken’s release. The game really is a worldwide event.

Tekken 8 marketing in London GOING HARD. Woah. pic.twitter.com/Nl8lIu76iY

— Jez (@JezCorden) January 27, 2024