Bandai Namco is pulling out all the stops to turn the ship around when it comes to Tekken 8's public reception. The launch of Season 3 was meant to be a big reset button for the game, taking it back to its roots and the experience fans would expect of the legendary fighting game series.
However, as soon as it hit, the review bombing started. On Steam, it's easy to see players' disdain for the current state of the meta. "It's not fun anymore playing this game and that says something when a game, especially Tekken, THE fighting is not fun anymore," wrote one reviewer.
Over on the official Tekken website, Bandai explains that it understands the reasoning behind the feedback, and made a misstep. "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. However, we recognize that the battle experience we intended to deliver has not fully met your expectations," writes the developer.
"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."
The first patch is already here, and is focused on fixing critical bugs and unintended behaviours. The next big updates will be coming in mid-April and later on in spring this year. If you want certain changes put in pronto, you're advised to (politely) engage with the Tekken dev feedback portal, or the game's Discord.