Tekken 8‘s Season 3 update has proven such a fumble that the game now has a Mostly Negative rating on Steam, and multiple professional players have left the game behind. In response to this harsh criticism, Bandai Namco has announced an emergency patch is in development to win fans back.
The Season 3 update, marketed as a “back to basics” overhaul for the game, was meant to strip back some of the overly offensive gameplay mechanics that players felt took some of the traditional Tekken gameplay out of the equation. Instead, with the Season 3 update, the game appears to many as more of the same. A fighter just as aggro as previous iterations.
Tekken player Inconsiderate Racoon dubbed the update: “Tekken 8 Season 2 Part 2” before putting the game aside yet again and playing Marvel Rivals. Former pro Tekken player Speedkicks wrote on X: “Reading these [patch] notes makes me fear for PhiDX’s liver”, referring to one of the game’s last remaining hopeful content creators. Kelpy, a recent Steam reviewer for the game, wrote: “The moment you take this game seriously it sucks all the actual fun out of the game, don’t fall into the trap.”
In response to all the doom and gloom, the Tekken team has come up with a plan. A recent blog post describes how the company received over 700 feedback messages in its newly created feedback portal service. It’s safe to say these were informative in nature, as the post goes on to acknowledge the update did not meet fan expectations.
“In Ver.3.00.00, we implemented adjustments aimed at maintaining each character’s individuality while reducing excessive rewards – particularly those stemming from the Heat system and character-specific enhanced states – in order to improve overall balance”, the post reads. “However, we recognize that the battle experience we intended to deliver has not fully met your expectations.”
It continues, “Moving forward, we will continue to pursue a battle experience where offense and defense are balanced around the Heat system, allowing players to engage in meaningful mind games and decision-making against their opponents. While maintaining the direction of the Ver.3.00.00 adjustments, we will continue addressing elements that still result in excessive rewards or one-sided gameplay. These issues will be improved step by step through individual behavior fixes and performance adjustments.”
As for future steps, an emergency patch will be going live today at 7pm PDT, or roughly 4am CEST. This is aiming to eliminate critical bugs and unintended behaviors – the latter meaning attacks not working the way they should.
The next minor update, for which we have no additional information, is set to come in mid-April, while the first major update to Season 3 (version 3.01) will come in late Spring.
The question is, can Bandai Namco win back the hearts of Tekken players who have been hurt too many times? Those who booted up Tekken 8 Season 3, saw that King got buffs again, and turned the game off? For those who felt disappointed with Season 2 and see this as more of the same, it’s a hard sell. Still, who knows. Maybe with the new feedback portal major shifts are possible…
