Since Tekken 8 got its major Season 2 update, the game has seen quite a bit of criticism from its player base. Issues with the game have gotten severe enough that, just a few days after releasing the 2.00.02 patch for the game, game director Kohei Ikeda has taken to social media platform X to apologise for the current state of the game.
For context, with the Season 2 update, Tekken 8‘s overall gameplay was changed up quite a bit. This was seemingly done in an effort to discourage players from going all-out on offense, and Bandai Namco wanted players to adopt a slower, more defensive play style. This move has been widely criticised by Tekken 8 players, who have since taken to posting negative reviews about the game on Steam.
At the time of publishing, Steam ratings for Tekken 8 are currently sitting at an aggregate of Overwhelmingly Negative for its recent reviews, with 5,412 negative reviews. This has brought the game’s overall rating down to Mixed for all reviews, with a total of more than 35,000 reviews.
“To all Tekken fans around the world, thank you, as always, for your continued support,” posted Ikeda on X. “I would like to offer my heartfelt apologies as the Game Director for the fact that the recently released Season 2 did not meet your expectations and caused inconvenience due to critical issues.”
Ikeda closed off the post by talking about the team consistently working on the game after taking player feedback into account. According to him, there are plans to keep releasing more updates to bring meaningful improvements to Tekken 8 one by one.
“We take all of your feedback and comments very seriously,” wrote Ikeda. “The entire team is working together with full commitment to resolve these problems and deliver a better gameplay experience.”
“We will continue to make steady, meaningful improvements one by one, and do our utmost to regain your trust.”
A major criticism of the Season 2 update has been that just about every character in the roster has gotten abilities to turn several scenarios into 50-50 ones. This has also prompted players to criticise the lack of defensive options that players have access to.
Update 2.00.02 was announced earlier this month. Its primary purpose was to resolve issues surrounding unblockable attacks by characters Paul and Jack-8. The update has also changed throw breaks so that they no longer cause chip damage.
The team behind Tekken 8 has also mentioned previously that it is working on more updates for the game, and is keeping an eye on the community feedback to figure out what it would do next.
Tekken 8 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game’s last major update, kicking off its second season, brought along returning character Anna Williams as a new addition to its roster. Despite its more recent issues, the fighting game has proven to be quite popular. As of February, more than 3 million copies of Tekken 8 had been sold.
For more details, check out our review of Tekken 8.
