Tekken 8 Director Reveals January 2024 Release Date Was to Avoid Another Fighting Game

Director Katsuhiro Harada has revealed in a recent episode of YouTube show Harada’s Bar that the release date for Tekken 8 was pushed back so as to not conflict with the release date of another fighting game.

While Harada doesn’t go into detail about which fighting game caused Bandai Namco to push back the release of Tekken 8, context clues imply that Harada is talking about either Street Fighter 6, which was released back in June, or Mortal Kombat 1, which was released back in September.

Interestingly, Harada does note that he pushed for the game to be delayed by around half a year into January 2024, which could indicate that he was more directly talking about Street Fighter 6 rather than Mortal Kombat 1.

Back in September, Bandai Namco revealed that Panda would be a part of the Tekken 8 roster alongside other franchise mainstays like Xiaoyu and Jin Kazama.

Tekken 8 is slated for release on January 26, and will be coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.