Rundown of Tekken 8 Season 2 Changes

If you look at the Tekken 8 community, there's a certain amount of negativity that permeates any discussion about the state of the game. However, if there is one thing that's hard to complain about, it's the communication.

On top of Harada spilling his heart out on X, Bandai Namco continues to host regular developer streams where they share all the upcoming plans and changes, with the recent one covering their intentions for Season 2, as well as a few other things.

There's a lot to go over in this nearly 3 hour stream, so here's a more brief rundown of everything that you could've caught by watching the stream:

• The stream took off with a few updates surrounding the Tekken merch, collabs, cosmetics, and related products. The metal Displate posters continue to sell pretty well, and will soon get new designs. 
• There will also be a Tekken board game from Go On Board, who have previously made The Witcher and Cyberpunk board games. It aims to emulate the 3D fighting game experience and Tekken's mechanics in a different format. Right now, you have a chance to win an Angel Jin figure by following them on gamefound.
• Official Tekken merch will be available at the Tekken Shop at Evo Japan 2025, it will be open from May 9 to May 10.
• S.H.Figuarts will be releasing their fourth Tekken action figure with King. It will be in stores starting April 26th, with a retail price of ¥9,900 (roughly 66 USD).
• As part of the Tekken Fandom Campaign, developers will continue to add more character panels featuring community fan art, with 16 pieces already confirmed. They will be staggered out throughout several months, and you'll be able to get them by fighting artist's ghosts in the Battle Lounge.
• The recent Atelier Yumia collaboration will go both ways, so you can expect some new free items to be added later, no other details so far.

If you're interested in esports, there was quite a bit of news in that section as well:

• Tekken 8 will be featured at Saudi Arabia's Esports World Cup sportswashing event, with the prize pool details coming later.
• Tekken World Tour 2025 is lifting regional restrictions, any country can hold Dojo events and players of any nationality will be allowed to compete.
• TWT 2026 finals will be held in "early 2026" with finalists being picked from global and regional leaderboards.
• In May, there will be several TWT events: Evo Japan, Brussels Challenge, Combo Breaker, Headstomper, and Battle Arena Melbourne.
• There are several curious changes and clarifications with the regulations. Each tournament is allowed to have their own coaching rules, but if those aren't in place, then the standard will be to have one coach assist per match, you can only get coaching if you lost the previous set, and this help will be limited to one minute with one coach. This is subject to change, and they will monitor how this affects the comp scene.
• All top 4 matches will be BO5, losers semi-finals will also be first to 3.
• For now, tournaments must be held with Tournament Settings in the in-game options set to "Default" with "Present 1" for stream setups.
• This is related to upcoming Vsync settings, and players soon getting an option to turn it off on the console versions of the game

And now, let's dive into the more direct Season 2 updates that will impact gameplay and introduce a new character:

• Season 2 will release on April 1st.
• They clarified that while Season 2 will have new ranked changes and some other nice changes, they will not be covering stuff that was already said in the previous developer stream.
• Starting off, they held an extended Anna showcase, defining her with 3 key pillars: close-up speed, 50/50 mixups, weapon that changes forms.
• Anna has a new stance called Hammer Chance, similarly to Chaos Judgment, she will be able to transition into this stance from some of her other moves.
• New mechanic will allow Anna to inflict a debuff on her opponents, which will make the opponent receive chip damage from all incoming attacks. Landing a hit on Anna will remove this effect.
• They broadly describe the policy of Season 2 with three goals: expand strategic options of Heat, reevaluate offensive and defensive balance of Heat, and improve controls for a more accessible experience.
• You can now go into infinite practice stage after loading into the game. This will put you into the infinite void you see during combo challenges.
• Resetting to different parts of the stages can also now be done more quickly with touchpad direction + reset hot keys.
• For the practice mode training dummy, you can now select very detailed punishment options that they can use, as well as their Ukemi actions.
• Ki charge no longer gives you a counter hit. Instead, it will grant 150% damage on the next hit.
• Some off-axis combos will now lead to your opponent recalibrating to ensure that combos are consistent. However, going further left or right from your opponent will still require off-axis specific combos.
• During matches, you will now see pop-ups that were previously exclusive to the practice mode, such as Punish, Counter, Tornado, and the combo/damage counter.
• Escaping throws will now do a slight amount of recoverable damage to the person who breaks the throw. It will not, however, allow for a chip KO.

After concluding the overview of general changes, developers highlighted some of the characters that changed the most:

• Azucena gets more options from her Libertador stance, including new attacks and new stance transitions.
• Devil Jin also received a few new moves and improvements. Df1,2 is now a natural combo, and a mid df1 follow-up won't allow opponents to simply duck that string. Fly stance gets an unblockable 1+2 option. Hellsweep gets a more damaging combo option in Heat.
• Jun's Heat Smash is now a new move that Jun can use at any point while in Heat. Ff1+2 has a new follow-up when you hold back. She also gets a new mechanic related to her healing, but details are unclear so far.
• Zafina gets a new b1+2 punch that consumes a bit of her life but should be fairly strong. She also gets a new Claudio style power-up mechanic that will boost some of her moves. In this state, her Power Crush also becomes safe.
• King will receive 100% damage instead of 50% during his muscle armor. He gets a new 3,2,2 string that goes into Jaguar Sprint. While standing 2,2 also allows for a Jaguar Sprint transition. Speaking of Jaguar Spring, running several steps will now activate a stronger version of JS, signified by red flames. During this state, King's JS attacks are powered up. When in Heat, the red JS activates right away. Also in Heat, Giant Swing and Shining Wizard throws become homing.
• Yoshimitsu's sword damage and healing is reduced. Flash recovery is longer. New move uf1,1, which goes into Flea stance. 1+2 in Flea stance leads to a full combo. His FC unblockable low can't be buffered during the new crouch Heat Dash.
• Jin's 2,1,4 and uf2 are now punishable at -10. CH d2 no longer leads into combos. Slash kick can transition into ZEN. Several new moves that tap into his devil powers during Heat.

The stream concluded with a more thorough look at the Season Pass 2, stylized as "Season 2 Character & Stage Pass":

• In the Summer, Tekken 8 will receive a Pac-Man 45th anniversary stage and a new character.
• Pac-Man stage will not be a rework, but rather an original stage with new music and unique gimmicks.
• Autumn will offer one new character, and Winter will also feature character + stage.
• Two of these characters will be returning from prior games (not Akuma), and the last one will be a new original character.
• While they didn't reveal the DLC line-up, they added background colors that are meant to act as hints. The colors for the 3 new characters are blue, purple, and teal. Pure speculation here, but if we go by previous DLC announcements, blue could stand for Lei, while purple is shared between Ganryu, Armor King, and Kunimitsu. Teal is most strongly associated with Marduk, but naturally it can't be him due to the teal character being new to Tekken.
• The game will get a new DLC bundle that will include all Season 1 DLCs, and an Ultimate Edition that will combine character and stage DLCs for both Season 1 and Season 2.
• There will also be a more "entry level" Advanced Edition, which will include the base game + Heihachi, Lidia, and Eddy DLCs.

That's all folks!