Jin Kazama never looked so good (Picture: Bandai Namco)
GameCentral goes hands-on with Tekken 8 and is impressed by not only its Unreal Engine 5 powered graphics but its new fight features too.
It’s six years, and a whole new console generation, since Tekken 7 launched to generally positive feedback, back in 2017. That’s a long time ago now though and in the meantime Street Fighter 6 has launched to great success, increasing the competition even as other new fighters, such as Mortal Kombat 1, have seemed to underwhelm.
One of the big draws for Tekken 8 is that it’ll be the first major fighting game to use the Unreal Engine 5 graphics engine, which means that all the returning character models have been rebuilt from the ground up and there’s a brand new online hub to meet and greet fellow players.
We sat down at an early on-hands event to explore everything we could from the new Arcade Quest world mode, as well as a look at the new AI training system, the return of Tekken Ball, and some good old fashioned one-on-one fighting.
Tekken 8 has not one but two free-roaming arcade worlds, in Arcade Quest and the Fight Lounge. Arcade Quest is an offline mode full of tutorials, while Fight Lounge serves as the online hub where you can challenge fellow human players.
Game director Katsuhiro Harada and Producer Michael Murray have said that these modes ware intended to recreate the arcade environment they grew up with, and it does a much better job of it than any previous Tekken mode.
In the past, Arcade mode has been a simple single-player tournament but the new Arcade Quest lets you move around in a world containing multiple virtual arcades. It’s not intended as a story mode but it is more than just a vanilla series of CPU fights.
Arcade Quest starts you off by customising your cartoonish avatar and giving you a handful of tutorials on how to play, before you’re let loose in your own storyline as you try to become the very best Tekky in all the land (it feels very similar to the original Pokémon story, actually).
Take on all comers in Tekken 8 with your little avatar in Arcade Quest (Picture: Bandai Namco)
Tekken 8’s online hub, Fight Lounge, is a free roaming world divided into the Battle Area, Customisation Shop, Iron First Outfitters, and the Beach Area, where you find the return of much loved Tekken Ball.
It’s clear Bandai Namco wants you to spend lots of time in these arcade worlds; this is where you can customise up to 10 characters (although you can’t look like a bona fide Tekken character, sadly) and experience your own story while it gives you rewards like clothing and custom health bars.
You can also practise while fighting against your own, or pre-installed, AI, which learns your moves on the go. As you get better, so does the AI you’re battling against, which started to become evident to us after about 10 fights against… ourselves.
What caught our eyes the most, is just how good the game looks. It’s been a while since the Tekken franchise was known for state-of-the-art graphics but Tekkken 8 is very impressive, even with the efforts split across 32 different characters and 16 arenas.
Fight in the middle of Time Squa… Urban Square! (Picture: Bandai Namco)
Characters’ hair doesn’t look like it’s held in place by umpteen bottles of hair gel anymore. If it’s raining your screen will have rain drops on it too, and after fights the characters will be covered in sweat. One arena, called Urban Square (basically a Times Square replica), looks especially impressive with lots of unique buildings, depth, rotating digital billboards, and neon signs everywhere.
So far so good… the game looks great and the two arcade worlds, although only having rudimentary customisation, are fun. The next big change to the Tekken series is the revamped gameplay – the new Heat battle system – which comes in addition to the current Rage system. So let’s explain what it’s all about, and why it makes the game more exciting.
Once activated, Heat makes you much more powerful for 10 seconds, but you can only use it once per round, at any time. It also allows you to use Heat Smash, an extra powerful move, although once you’ve used it you’ll no longer be in Heat.
Tekken’s Rage system, implemented in Tekken 7, remains the same, and automatically activates once you’re low on health, to give you the chance to use the very powerful Rage Art attack. The new Heat system, on top of Rage, gives fighting another fun layer that isn’t too powerful on its own but still packs a punch, especially for aggressive players.
Reina fights Jin in Tekken 8 (Picture: Bandai Namco)
Speaking of aggressiveness, Bandai Namco has really stressed the importance of attacking play during press for Tekken 8. It’s not only the new Heat system that incentivises you to play aggressively, because it’s so powerful, but new additions now let you do damage against guarding opposition and your health can be recovered if you land your attacks.
We found that the difficulty was very beginner friendly, and that your computer opponent only started doing elaborate combos and properly using the Heat system at the very highest of the game’s five difficulty settings.
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Although we’ve only spent a day with the game so far, what we’ve seen so far has been impressive. Tekken 8 is stunning to look at, the gameplay is more fun with the new Heat system, and Arcade Quest’s offline and online worlds have lots to see and do.
The customisation of your arcade character is a bit bland, single-player difficulty is pretty low, and the new aggressive direction of the series might not be for everyone, but it’s a very promising sequel that seems to be a significant improvement on its predecessor.
Formats: PlayStation 5 (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: Bandai Namco Studios and Arika
Release Date: 26th January 2024
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GameCentral goes hands-on with Tekken 8 and is impressive by not only its Unreal Engine 5 powered graphics but its new fight features too.