First look at Tekken 8 beta, no guest characters yet

25 July 2023

Since the very early years of online gaming and esports, fighting games have been amongst the most popular titles around, and among the fighting games, Tekken has been one of the most played franchises since the release of its first instalment back in 1994. Now, almost thirty years after that first launch, developer Bandai Namco Entertainment has released the beta version for Tekken 8. The early access release has provided a first look into the roster for the upcoming newest Tekken, but unfortunately, guest characters are not available yet.

14 playable characters

Together with the launch of the Tekken 8 beta, some of the producers and developers behind the game commented on what has been included and what can still be expected. In terms of the playable characters, only the base roster has been made available so far. That means, the characters players will be getting at the opening of the title. The guest characters will not be released until the launch of the full version of the game. A total of fourteen characters has been included in the beta version:

“We have 14 characters in the playable build”, says Katsuhiro Harada, director for Tekken 8, about the playable characters in the beta version, “We haven't had a chance to review the play data, so we can't speak from an empirical standpoint, but just being able to see everyone play the game. Kazuya, a lot of people are picking up, King as well. So those are probably the two popular ones so far”.

Broad testing possibilities

Naturally, the Tekken 8 beta version provides players and developers with more testing opportunities than just checking out the base roster of fighters. Since the launch of the build on July 21st, they also have a chance to try out the game’s famed battle system and the signature character moves. Besides that, it also gives them a first look at the game’s online mode and network quality. Tekken 8 will be the first instalment of the franchise with this feature. The testing has been organized into two different periods, the first running from July 21st to July 24th and the second from July 28th until July 31st.

“Well, it's not that long since we last talked, so there hasn't been any drastic changes to the gameplay, just fine-tuning, et cetera”, explains Michael Murray, producer for Tekken 8, “The biggest difference is probably just the online play since everyone's seen that for the first time. Although we've been saying it, not many people notice it, there is cross play in the game and people can try that out. Not this week, but when we open it up to the other platforms as well. So that's there and then people are able to just see the matching and see some of the other elements of the game as well”.