Highlights
- Tekken 8 director confirms no plans to include Denuvo in PC version, relieving PC gamers of potential performance issues.
- New Tekken 8 details continue to emerge, including new characters and post-launch guest characters.
- Bandai Namco's previous inclusion of Denuvo in Tekken 7 caused problems, but it appears they have learned their lesson and won't repeat the mistake in Tekken 8.
Clearing up a bit of confusion, Tekken 8 game director Katsuhiro Harada confirms that there are no plans to introduce Denuvo into the PC version of the game. It was an exciting week for Bandai Namco's popular fighting franchise as Tekken 8 was once again a big part of Evo 2023. In addition to the World Tour competition rolling through the annual event, Harada and Michael Murray were on hand to reveal a couple of new Tekken 8 trailers for the returning Raven and a newcomer named Azucena, who is from Peru and quite a big fan of coffee.
New details have been plentiful as well, with new characters getting revealed nearly every month and at major industry events. In fact, guest characters have been a hot topic as of late as the Tekken series has a long history of adding fighters from other franchises such as the case with Noctis, Akuma, and even The Walk Dead's Negan. While Bandai Namco has seemingly confirmed additional guest characters for Tekken 8 post-launch, there is one major feature which won't be coming back to the franchise anytime soon.
Recently, fans noticed that the EULA agreement on Steam was updated for Tekken 8, almost mirroring the one from the previous game which included the controversial anti-tampering tech known as Denuvo. Thankfully, it appears that the information may be incorrect, or at the very least a mistake, as Harada responded to a fan over social media, theorizing that the update was very likely a copy and paste from Tekken 7. Either way, Harada stated that he has no plans to add Denuvo or anything similar into Tekken 8, which should provide a sigh of relief for PC gamers.
Denuvo has a long and controversial history with PC gamers. In fact, Tekken 7 launched with it enabled and as players noted, it caused a variety of performance related issues, which is a major problem for online games that require precise inputs at specific times. Thankfully, Bandai Namco eventually removed Denuvo from Tekken 7 entirely and based on Harada's response, it appears the team has learned their lesson.
Although the game doesn't have a release date quite yet, new information appears on a semi-regular basis for it, sometimes to the surprise of the developers as well. In July, Tekken 8 held a closed network test, giving some fans an early opportunity to try out the game and a sizable portion of its roster. Unfortunately for Bandai Namco, a sizable list of characters yet to be announced leaked out and a cracked version of the beta was accessed beyond the testing dates. The act prompted TEKKEN Project and Bandai Namco Esports to issue a joint message threatening action being taken and bans issued for future Tekken tournaments.
Tekken 8 is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
