“As the person in charge of the Tekken franchise, I apologize”: Tekken 8 DLC Controversy Continues After Mysterious Tweet Continues to Fuel the Fire
After receiving a lot of backlash for Heihachi Mishima's home stage in Tekken 8, producer Katsuhiro Harada explained what went wrong.
- Heihachi Mishima's home stage having a price tag did not sit right with the majority of the Tekken 8 community.
- The game got heavily review bombed on Steam, drastically changing its overall rating in the process.
- Producer Katsuhiro Harada extensively addressed the situation in a now-deleted post on X.
Considering the state of AAA fighting video games of modern times, Tekken 8 kicked things off on a much better note than titles like Mortal Kombat 1, as the base game came with a lot more content than is usually seen from competitor franchises in the current era. However, even with 32 characters included in the base game at launch and plenty of stages for players to battle it out on, there was not any doubt that Bandai Namco Entertainment was planning a lot of additional content for the rest of the title’s lifespan.
While the season pass for the first year of Tekken 8 promised four additional playable characters to be added to its relatively expansive roster, it turns out that the accompanying stages that were supposed to be coming with each fighter are not included in the package, and after plenty of backlash from the community regarding the latest stage’s price tag, producer Katsuhiro Harada finally had to step in and out in a matter of hours.
Katsuhiro Harada Addressed the Tekken 8 Community After Review Bombs on Steam
From the moment the legendary Heihachi Mishima was announced to be the next DLC character in Tekken 8, fans were understandably excited simply because of his overarching presence in the rest of the franchise that has helped the character reach iconic status.
Unfortunately, the expectations from the Tekken fanbase were already set due to another DLC character who made her way to the game not so long ago, as Lidia Sobieska was accompanied by a free home stage called Seaside Resort. Which suggested that with Heihachi’s inevitable arrival in Tekken 8, his own home stage called Genmaji Temple would have been added completely free of cost as well.
Sadly, that just was not the case, as although Heihachi Mishima was made available to every player who had already purchased the season pass, Genmaji Temple was not included in the deal, as Bandai Namco Entertainment decided to charge the fanbase an extra $4.99 to get to play on the latest character’s home stage.
That led to massive backlash from the community, with players review bombing Tekken 8 on Steam and bringing its recent reviews down to “Mostly Negative,” with an overall average of “Mixed” from a spectacular “Mostly Positive” just a few days ago. “As the person in charge of the Tekken franchise, I apologize,” wrote producer Katsuhiro Harada in a mysteriously deleted post on X, addressing the situation and trying to explain that he does not have anything to do with how the DLC pricing is handled.
Harada Promised the Fanbase That He Will Review the Tekken Project’s Overall Structure
Katsuhiro Harada explained that unlike the Tekken 7 era, the project is currently divided into two separate companies, one being responsible for the development of Tekken 8, while the other handles everything related to the publishing and the sales of the title.
Bringing up the way in which the publishing and sales team approached the release for the Warrior Prime Minister, the producer admitted that although no free stages were promised in the season pass anyway, the Seaside Resort was an unexpected occurrence, which could have set some false expectations among the fanbase.
“I failed to create an organizational structure that would allow me to oversee things beyond my own position,” continued the Tekken 8 producer, stating that he has been on the development side for years and does not exactly know how the publishing team is planning the release and the pricing of the content.
Harada promised the player base that he “will review this structure and change it to one that values the community as it did in the past,” but now that his post has been deleted for unknown reasons, it remains to be seen how Bandai Namco Entertainment is tackling the issue internally.
