Everything we know about Tekken 8: Trailer, gameplay and more

Tekken is one of the most influential and storied franchises in the history of fighting games, but it’s been a long seven years since the last game in the series was released.

That explains some of the enormous hype that was generated when Tekken 8 was announced in September 2022, and we’ve got all the details about the game right here. If you’re on the lookout for other titles, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming games for the PlayStation 5, right here.

Tekken 8 trailer

Tekken 8 wasn’t even really being heavily rumoured, despite the amount of time that had passed since the last Tekken game, so it was a major and welcome surprise when Sony included it in a State of Play broadcast in September 2022.

It’s not even a tiny teaser trailer! It includes a couple of minutes of in-engine footage, which might not be raw gameplay but is close enough to really whet our appetites.

Tekken 8 release date

The one major disappointment in that cool trailer above comes when it ends – rather than any sort of a release window, even one that was really far off, the trailer simply says to “Stay Tuned” for more information.

We’ll be honest – anyone who’s optimistic about videogame release dates probably hasn’t been around too long. This means that the very earliest you can realistically expect Tekken 8 is at the tail-end of 2023, with 2024 also a very realistic (in fact, likely) option.

That means we’re still quite a long way off the game coming out, but you never know – maybe that’ll all change with a surprise announcement at some point.

Tekken 8 platforms

While Sony was the one to take the wraps off Tekken 8, it won’t be exclusive to its PlayStation 5 console.

Instead, Tekken 8 will come to all of the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, making it a fully next-gen title.

The game won’t be coming to PS4 or Xbox One and will be too powerful for the Nintendo Switch, which is a good thing for anyone looking to pick up a visually impressive fighting game at some point.

Tekken 8 story and gameplay

Tekken has a pretty labyrinthine story to follow (as is so often the case in the fighting game genre), but the only trailer out there for Tekken 8 gives us some solid hints as to its direction.

It features a massive fight between series lead Jin Kazama and his grandfather Kazuya Mishima, who isn’t exactly looking his age.

The Devil Gene that both possess is likely to be at the heart of the story once more, with Jin striving to use the Gene for good, despite how difficult it is to control. Of course, there will be a wider cast to interact with as well, so the story will surely be nice and involved.

On the gameplay side, while the trailer might look at times like an actual in-game fight, it isn’t quite that. This is the game engine in motion, running at 60FPS on the PS5, but it’s a slightly cut-scened version of a fight that doesn’t quite represent real gameplay.

Still, it looks gorgeous and should be fairly close to how the game will look when you’re actually playing it, which is impressive. It also shows off some really meaty attacks that ramp up in power as the fight progresses.

The stage being fought on is really dynamic and has a lot of background elements, so keep an eye out for that when you rewatch it, but we’ll still have to wait for actual gameplay footage before we can really dig into how Tekken 8 will change the game.

Tekken 8 roster

As with any fighting game, a key question ahead of release will always be what characters, new and old, will be included as playable options.

In the case of Tekken 8, we’re in the dark for now on all but two characters – those in the first trailer, Jin Kazama and Kazuya Mishima.

Other than these two brawlers, there could be any number of characters to take control of. Tekken 7 also included a character creator to let you mould your own fighter, so we’re very much hoping that’ll again be present in Tekken 8.