Tekken 8 launched its big new Season 2 update this week that was meant to shake up the game and roster, which it seems like they’ve succeeded in a sense.
Bandai Namco’s flagship fighting game is currently facing a lot of criticism across the playerbase for its changes made for the second year.
On Steam in particular this week, Tekken 8’s user reviews have fallen to ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ with a staggering amount of new recommendations pouring in.
Over just the past few days, 1,654 negative reviews have poured in as opposed to just just 166 positive ones.
This is not the first time Tekken’s Steam reviews have tanked, but this new amount is staggeringly nearly double what we saw before.
Even players with over 1,000 hours in the game are now giving the thumbs down to what was presumably their fighter of choice previously.
It doesn’t stop there either with those in the competitive scene being hyper critical of the update too.
Bandai Namco previously said they were going to focus on improving defense in Season 2, but players are having a hard time figuring out where that’s supposed to be.
The problems we’re seeing a lot of players talk about is the removal or strengthening of many characters’ weaknesses, pushing them even more on the offensive than ever before.
It seems the developers took the “buff everyone” approach to Season 2, but players are feeling they went perhaps too far with that venture this time.
The increased number of plus on block attacks makes the 50/50 guessing situation more in your face than ever before.
After playing season 2, I gotta say we were so ungrateful to season 1
— Arslan Ash (@ArslanAsh95) April 1, 2025
Lars, for example, got multiple new safe moves on top of more ways to stance cancel, leading to new true mixups that players are going to have to try and defend against.
Instead of making things easier on defenders, it’s looking even more difficult across the board at least here at the start of the season.
There has been praise for improving sidestepping, but a lot of that sentiment too has been overshadowed by the amount of new homing moves that counter it.
We’re also seeing reports of glitches leading to unblockable setups or ones that can do severe amounts of damage.
I had high hopes about the game w the powercrush HE change, stepping change. Then the tekken talk showed new moves that were scary.
Labbed the game for 6 hrs and played for 3 hrs and it is the fastest, dumbest tekken gameplay i’ve ever seen. Just do random shit.
— ONi | Tone (@hidetone) April 1, 2025
At the start, it’s looking like a large number of the cast are really strong and can put up huge damage from mid-screen, which is not exactly the direction many players were hoping the game would take.
The developers have said they’re open to feedback and are already planning on reverting the controversial throw-tech chip damage, however, the complaints are probably stacking up even more than they expected.
It’ll be very interesting to see how Bamco responds to the negative reception of Season 2 of Tekken 8 out the gate and how those sentiments will evolve as players get more time with the game’s new state.
Tekken 8 Paul unblockable bug with new f1+2 changes.
Otherwise, fun changes!#T8_report @TEKKEN #t8_paul #TEKKEN8 pic.twitter.com/bZPpD9qDLG— FALCO (@RGV_FALCO) April 1, 2025
We probably shouldn’t expect a complete overhaul of the game again any time soon, so the Tekken team finds themselves in a position that’s not too enviable at the moment.
This was the vision they had for the game moving forward for the next year, so there’s probably a lot of discussions going on at Bamco headquarters right now about what to do.
Season2 Day 1
Jack & Paul are more likely to be blocked in a rank pic.twitter.com/tueMSp1yHk— DRX｜KNEE (@holyknee) April 1, 2025
It’s also still just the first week filled with first impressions and kneejerk reactions, so player sentiments may continue to shift in the coming weeks and months — but many don’t seem to be very happy with the current state of Tekken.
Source: Event Hubs