【TEKKEN 8】Winter Update & Season 2 Trailer Impressions

TEKKEN 8‘s World Tour Finals has just concluded with Rangchu winning, becoming the first person to win the TEKKEN World Tour twice. That’s quite the accomplishment for Rangchu, and the perfect ending to the first season of TEKKEN 8‘s competitive run. With the final character for TEKKEN 8 being revealed this Thursday at the Video Game Awards, seems we’ve got a trailer for the Winter Update and Season 2 via an official “Announcement Trailer”. Let’s watch it below as well as get my impressions on it.

  IMPRESSIONS  

To me, compared to Street Fighter 6 and Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, TEKKEN 8 had the most potential and thus, had the greatest ability to fumble the bag.

It has been fumbling the bad as far as content goes for me. With a sluggish, inconsistent, and unpredictable release schedule for characters, charging for DLC stages, and a Battle Pass which doesn’t benefit all characters equally, I’ve found myself hating T8’s add-ons. Also, as many people would say, the main system mechanics do need a lot of work. Despite all of this, the game is still fun to lay.

Now, a lot of these updates within this trailer are just add-ons and not anything new. Improvements to things like Photo Mode, additional character customization slots, customized characters within the menus, etc. These aren’t massive improvements or new implementation, but more-so of quality-of-life updates that the game badly needs. I think the most non-impactful thing that they added is the character fanarts; seeing something you’ve created within the fighting game series you love has to instill pride and awe within those who created.

The biggest takeaway from this are the new moves that are added to every single character, which is something that Guilty Gear -STRIVE- is delivering, though hasn’t completed for all characters (the latest ones being like Chip, Ramlethal, etc.). Also, the modification and tweaking of system mechanics, which should tone done some things about the HEAT meter which have been driving those in the competitive circuits CRAZY.

The last final thing is that they did not reveal how many characters would be in Season 2’s pass, nor if we will see anyone or not from it once they do show it. The Game Awards this Thursday happens at 6:30PM CST, and the final TEKKEN 8 character of Season 1 will be announced there. However, it’d be nice if they did what Street Fighter 6 and GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- have done by showing us the FULL roster for Season 2 and just give us game trailers for them overtime; so we’ll see if we get a dual release at the VGAs.