Tekken 8 Interview - Discussing Story, Gameplay, and Approaching New Players

Tekken 8 is shaping up to be a force of nature when it launches next month for current generation platforms and PC. We’ve learned a lot about the game over the course of several months from its announcement, but also through the times we got to preview Tekken 8 ourselves, including recently. From the new characters to new visuals and gameplay mechanics, and a continuing storyline, there’s a lot to look forward to.

So much so that, despite so much revealed already, we still had some remaining questions of our own. To help with this, we had a chance to sit down and chat with game director Kohei Ikeda and producer Michael Murray, who shared more on Tekken 8’s long-running story, as well as the specifics regarding some of the new game mechanics and ease of accessibility being offered up in this new outing.

Tekken 8 has the honor of continuing the longest running story in video-game history. That’s a fact that becomes evident considering both how long the Tekken series has been going on for, and also, because Tekken 8 picks up directly from the end of Tekken 7 as well, this is evident when starting up its Story mode.

The newest chapter of the story, titled “The Dark Awakens,” features protagonist Jin Kazama, but the question remains if other characters will have their time in the spotlight as well. “The focal point will be Jin Kazama,” said game director Kohei Ikeda, “That said, when you’re progressing through the story arc, different characters appear in different places and you’ll be able to control them as well.”

“Tekken was known in the past as a series where you would clear the arcade opponents and you would get a CG movie, right. There’s something similar for that for each of the 32 characters in the character episodes,” Michael Murray added.

The King of Iron Fist Tournament has always been a backdrop to the story, and this time it’s now being brought to the forefront of the narrative. Things like that are ways the team has worked to enhance the story experience.

Circling back around to the longevity of Tekken 8’s story, it might seem a bit daunting for new players to jump into. It’s not reasonable to expect them to go back and play those older games to catch up, so just what will Tekken 8 have in place to facilitate such a need? The answer comes in the form of a digest that will prompt at the start of Story mode.

“You can choose to view that and it will get you up to speed,” said Ikeda. “And also there are character episodes for each of the main 32 characters, which gives you another glimpse into their backgrounds and sometimes their relationship to other characters. Playing through those as well will give you a better understanding of the story.”

Additionally, there's the Netflix anime Tekken: Bloodlines that players can watch to catch up on the story. “Since it’s the first time Jun is returning in such a long time, watching that anime will give you a bit more on the background dynamic between Jun and Kazuya and Jin,” Murray said.

It’s just one more element that feeds into Tekken’s story and the importance of keeping with that narrative rather than pivoting to a reboot or an entirely new story for the series. “Tekken has a lot of characters that take part in the story arc, so we thought that fans really wanted to see what happens after the epic conclusion of Tekken 7, so it really never came to mind about doing a reboot,” said Ikeda.

Murray adds that despite experiencing some of these modern reboots, he already knew what was coming, so there weren’t any surprises. That sort of dampened his motivation to continue towards the end. “I think we made a better decision to continue that story arc," he said.

On the topic of character episodes, there seems to be a lot of focus on putting these together for further exploration into the story. As far as their structure though, it had to be asked if they were going to be similar to a typical arcade outing or something different entirely.

“So it’ll be like Tekken 5 and 6 where there’ll be some kind of introduction that will tell you why they’re taking part in the tournament,” Ikeda explained. “And then you have five characters who are paired up for those character dynamics, and you’ll have those five battles and you’ll be rewarded by the CG movie sequence at the end of that.” These cutscenes will be in-engine cinematics with a proper CG ending.

One of the main additions to Tekken 8 is the Heat mechanic, a special build-up ability that lets you unleash more aggressive and powerful attacks for a certain amount of time in each match. The result is what feels like speedier matches. As far as the philosophy behind adding such a mechanic, Ikeda said, “It might feel that way starting out because you’re using the full power of the Heat system to do massive damage to your opponent, but when both you and your opponent get better at the game, you’ll find that matches will probably play similarly as they did before.”

When you engage Heat, it has armor attributes, as an example, so by engaging right in the middle of an attack you can stop the opponent’s flow and then you’re primed to attack.

Gameplay is at the heart of Tekken 8, and that’s evident in the team’s philosophy in creating the Special Style this time around, which offers up simplified controls for people who want to jump into the action without having to spend so much time worrying about button inputs.

“It’s designed that with just a limited amount of buttons you can perform a variety of attacks that allow you to enjoy what the game is all about,” said Ikeda. “Not just the standard attacks for your character but also combinations that make use of the Heat system, and also Rage arts if you have them available. It’s designed so that newcomers can easily jump into the series but also even for intermediate or advanced players so they can easily pick up any of the 32 characters, even if it’s not their main character, so they can enjoy the game.”

Murray added that he thinks it’s a really great addition. “You can turn it on and off at any time, and it optimizes what attacks you have available depending on your situation. It does that for you automatically, which I think is cool.”

As typical of any contemporary fighting game, Tekken 8 will feature online play for its versus modes. One of the returning additions to Tekken 8 this time is the mini-game known as Tekken Ball, which hasn’t been in the games in quite some time. As for if that specific mode will be available in online play, the answer is yes it will. Other online components seem to be pretty standard, which is to be expected in a franchise sequel.

All in all, Tekken 8 is shaping up to be plenty competitive in its own right and these new features and ease of play will make it more welcoming for new players looking to try it out for the first time. Certainly, it seems to be the new standard for Tekken when it comes to accessibility, and it likely won’t be the last time we see it.

TechRaptor was invited to preview Tekken 8 at an event by the publisher.