Exciting News: Harada Shocks Fans with Mega Announcement about Tekken 8!

Highlights

Tekken 8 director confirms no plans to include Denuvo in PC version, relieving PC gamers of potential performance issues.

New details about Tekken 8 are constantly surfacing, unveiling fresh characters and guest characters to be added after the game's release. Bandai Namco's previous decision to incorporate Denuvo into Tekken 7 resulted in complications, but it seems they have grasped the lesson and will refrain from making the same error in Tekken 8.

Tekken 8 game director Katsuhiro Harada has clarified that there are no plans to include Denuvo in the PC version of the game. The announcement was made during Evo 2023, where Tekken 8 was heavily featured. Alongside the World Tour competition, Harada and Michael Murray unveiled new trailers for the returning character Raven and a newcomer named Azucena, who hails from Peru and is a devoted coffee enthusiast. The game has been sharing regular updates, introducing new characters every month and showcasing them at notable industry events. While fans have been eager to learn about guest characters, a recurring feature in the Tekken series, Bandai Namco has confirmed that it won't be making a return in Tekken 8 for the foreseeable future.

Fans recently noticed that Steam's EULA agreement for Tekken 8 underwent an update, closely resembling the one for the previous game, which included the contentious anti-tampering technology, Denuvo. However, it seems that this information may be inaccurate, or at the very least, a mistake. Harada, the developer, responded to a fan on social media and suggested that the update was most likely a simple copy and paste from Tekken 7. Regardless, Harada confirmed that he has no intentions of incorporating Denuvo or anything similar into Tekken 8, which should come as a relief for PC gamers.

Denuvo has a tumultuous history with PC gamers. Notably, Tekken 7 was initially launched with Denuvo enabled, causing several performance-related issues as players discovered. Such issues posed a significant challenge for online games that require precise inputs at specific times. Fortunately, Bandai Namco eventually removed Denuvo entirely from Tekken 7. Based on Harada's response, it appears that the development team has learned from this experience.

The release date for the game is still uncertain, but new information is regularly revealed, sometimes even surprising the developers. In July, a closed network test for Tekken 8 was held, allowing some fans to get an early glimpse of the game and a significant portion of its character roster. Unfortunately, Bandai Namco faced a leak of a substantial list of yet-to-be-announced characters, and a cracked version of the beta was accessed outside of the testing period. As a result, TEKKEN Project and Bandai Namco Esports released a joint message, warning of potential consequences and bans for future Tekken tournaments.

Tekken 8 is currently being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.