The paradigm has largely shifted in the fighting game community away from complete mystery Season Passes where players don’t know the DLC ahead of time over the past few years.
We still have some exceptions to that, however, with the largest one being Tekken 8 as it moves into Season 2 at the end of this month.
Recently, Tekken Producer Michael Murray asked fans if they would rather Bandai Namco start announcing all of their planned characters for the year ahead up front after the developers discussed the topic on the Tekken Talk Live where they revealed Anna Williams as the first character.
The fan response was pretty clear in the X/Twitter poll where 64.5% of responders voting they’d like to see the whole season ahead of time after 19,000 people chimed in.
With another Season 2 Tekken Talk Live scheduled for this Sunday, March 32, there was some hope among fans that Bandai Namco may just come out then or soon with the full roster of three additional characters.
Per the TEKKEN Talk Live. Do you want to know the characters in the whole season ahead of time with just simple concept sketches, or like the current big reveals at EVO etc.
— Michael Murray (@mykeryu) February 25, 2025
That’s probably not going to be the case, however, judging by the Producer’s response after the poll closed.
“I think most people understand this, but the poll was because we want
To know people’s thoughts so we can develop a multiyear strategy,” wrote Murray on X. “It’s not just ‘vote yes and we’ll release all the upcoming characters names in a PowerPoint slide next month.’ Sooner, probably yes. Everything all at once, at this moment, probably not.
As he points out, a major video game’s DLC schedule and plan is laid out a year in advance if not much more than that in the modern landscape.
There’s marketing, scheduling, crossover partnerships, event partnerships, and more that all need to be considered when a publisher is deciding how to unveil their new content to the world.
sooner, probably yes. Everything all at once, at this moment, probably not.
— Michael Murray (@mykeryu) March 11, 2025
While the general zeitgeist has essentially moved on from the practice of complete mystery season passes that players buy before knowing exactly what they’re getting, that doesn’t mean Tekken is going to catch up overnight.
It could still happen at some point during Season 2 where Bandai Namco just throws up the rest of the lineup at like Evo 2025 or something, but we’re more likely to see a change in strategy in Season 3 judging by Murray’s statements.
That of course could all change at any time really should the Tekken team leads push for the move, but they also discussed their comfortability with the tradition of keeping the surprises secret.
Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and even the upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves have all revealed their full season passes ahead of time, so it only seems like a matter of time before Tekken follows suit.
We’ll just have to wait and see how the team wants to handle their DLC moving forward after Anna.
Source: Event Hubs
