Tekken 8 Season 3 Announced as a 'Fresh Start'

After seeing its reviews and player count plummet in the wake of the controversial Season 2 update, Tekken 8 appears to be going back to basics in its upcoming Season 3, hoping that's enough to bring back jaded fans and naysayers.

A third season, announced during the Tekken World Tour Global Finals, is coming to Tekken 8, bringing a total of four brand new characters to the game, along with a number of tweaks and other additions, including refined balance and rank resets.

The four-minute trailer opened with what is essentially an apology for how things have gone. Phrases such as “Refined Balance”, “More Conventional” and “A Fresh Start” appear over gameplay before three of the four characters are revealed.

First, Kunimitsu will return to the game in “Late Spring”, followed by the return of fan favorite Bob during “Summer” and Roger Jr. during the “Autumn” months. A fourth character will be released during the “Winter” season.

All three represent some of the most in-demand characters and most notable omissions from Tekken 8's base roster, making Season 3 that much more exciting.

Five characters of Virtua Fighter 5 REVO pose together.

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If you've never played Virtua Fighter 5, there won't be a better time than with REVO

The definitive version of Virtua Fighter 5 is closer, and we had the chance to test REVO's closed beta.

Whether all these changes will be enough to revive Tekken 8 remains to be seen, but it's a bold approach in the face of an absolute freefall.

For many Tekken 8 players, Season 2 was enough to wrap things up

Part of what made Tekken 8's Season 2 so divisive was Bandai Namco's decision to double down on aggressive combat, taking what had been a balanced game with an emphasis on defense into a 50/50 offense-heavy fighter.

Things were bad enough that a boycott website, Boycott-Tekken8.com, was established. Fan backlash was so high that one of the proposed changes was scrapped, but it wasn't enough.

Season 2 was also not helped by the choice of DLC characters, including Fahkumram, who was already DLC in Tekken 7 and not in the base roster in Tekken 8.

Tekken 8's player count, which peaked at nearly 50,000 players at launch, plummeted into the thousands. Right now, 6,038 players are engaged in the game, a far cry from where things used to be. Elsewhere, reviews remain in the “Mixed” tier on Steam, with some refusing to change their stance.

For his part, ex-producer Katsuhiro Harada believed that the negative feeling was blown out of proportion. Harada later left the franchise and Bandai Namco.

Flash forward to today, and things are no better than they were. But in the coming months, things will hopefully change for the better.