Tekken 8 starting roster may be bigger than that of Street Fighter 6
When asked about Tekken 8's launch roster, franchise director Katsuhiro Harada stated that the number of characters will be 'a lot more than Capcom-san.'
Tekken has always had a ton of characters, and apparently, we may see quite a few of them in action when Tekken 8 first comes out. Franchise director Katsuhiro Harada took to Twitter to answer questions about Tekken 8 over the weekend, and when asked about the roster, Harada claimed that he believes it will be larger than Capcom’s game, heavily implied to be Street Fighter 6.
Harada answered said question during a somewhat impromptu AMA from his personal Twitter on April 9, 2023. It was there that Harada was asked by one Twitter user, “how many characters should we expect for Tekken 8 at launch?” To this Harada responded that he expects Tekken 8’s roster will likely outnumber that of the Street Fighter 6 starting roster.
“I think it's a lot more than Capcom-san,” Harada wrote. “Of course, character modeling, rigging, and costume design are all new assets, so it's hard work. That's why we're trying to increase the number of launches.”
Source: Twitter
Street Fighter 6’s starting roster is complete as of the reveal of Zangief, Cammy, and Lily, rounding out the roster with about 18 characters for launch in June 2023. Meanwhile, Tekken 8 has 12 characters revealed already. It’s also worth noting that Tekken 7 released with around 36 playable characters when it first came to home consoles in 2017. That said, it’s not the first time Harada has brought up how hard it is to prepare characters for the game. During our previous interview with Harada-san and lead producer Michael Murray, the duo shared that Tekken 8 has particular difficulties attached to it since the team is building the game from the ground up in the new Unreal Engine 5.
Nonetheless, Tekken 8 also has the benefit of a 2024 release window. With the game already having felt incredibly good in our recent preview, we’ll look forward to seeing more characters fill out the cast as Bandai Namco reveals them. Look for more updates on Tekken 8 here as they happen.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Tekken 8 starting roster may be bigger than that of Street Fighter 6
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TJ what's your best guess on the size of the launch roster? I'm thinking 28 to 30, with just three brand new characters given that legacy characters had to be rebuilt from scratch.
I'm not expecting guest characters anytime soon which is fine by me (...although I'd happily accept one Tifa Lockhart, she's just too good of a fit.) They'll be making DLC for years. -
A smaller roster with better balance will always be preferrable.
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If the game is an unbalanced mess, but I get to play my favourite character, I'm not sure that's a good place to be.
I've really liked SF5's approach of starting small and building a balanced roster over time. It's probably the most balanced fighting game of all time, at this point. I'm hoping SF6 will continue that approach.
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While I agree in principal, balance concerns are largely overstated by the fighting game community and don't really matter (within reason) until you reach high ranks. If the game is successful, the overwhelming majority of players aren't going to know that counter-hit launcher "X" has low startup frames, is safe on block and has tracking for sidestepping.
What I do think is important is that each character earns their spot by offering unique gameplay elements. Some of that was lost in Tekken 7, but they're working really hard to fix that.-
I think it's a little more complicated than balance doesn't matter until really high levels. It's also that balance is different for different skill levels. Some characters that are more mash friendly/high damage may seem really strong at low levels of gameplay where people aren't maximizing movement/spacing or all the options available to them or don't have the dexterity/muscle memory to actually fully utilize the characters.
As users spend more time with the game and grow, the relationships between the character interactions change as well. It's the difficult job for the devs to try and maximize the fun for as many skill levels as possible. I think that's why there's been a consistent shift to try and simplify controls and mechanics to maybe compress some of those skill levels (but sometimes that comes at a cost of freedom/expression and can start to reduce some of the fun at the middle/experience levels of gameplay).-
Have you seen the breakdown of the beginner/casual friendly combo system? They're making huge strides towards any player being able to pick up any character and throw down. It only gets you so far, but I think a match between two newcomers in Tekken 8 might look different than it did in previous entries. (I do agree with your points though.)
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Yeah I've been keeping up with combo stuff and enabling some of that stuff on the fly, and watched/read a few of the discussions how that stuff might actually end up being used by pros for guaranteed punishes on stuff where before they might go a safer route instead of the optimal one in tourney settings. It'll be really interesting.
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They added that when they put Eddy in Tekken 3. Just mash the kick buttons.
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I heard somewhere that his character model was literally going to be Sagat, but they bailed on Tekken vs Street Fighter after Tag 2 was received so poorly. Fahk is cool, hope he makes the main roster like Leroy did!
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Haha, I'm sure that played into it. I need to find what I was reading, but essentially they viewed it as too risky to the series' health to potentially bomb twice in a row.
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