Still directly or indirectly involved in the Mishima saga, silent assassin Nina Williams will return to Tekken 8 to take part in the new King of the Iron Fist tournament.
If Nina Williams is resuming her usual Tekken 8 outfit with a leather jacket, sunglasses, fishnet stockings and her traditional purple dress, she’s swapping out her adorable ponytail for a mid-length femme fatale. On the battlefield, she will be able to break the hearts of her enemies with her Fury Art, using her dual pistols to send out a barrage of bullets to protect herself and/or injure opponents who let their guard down too quickly.
Tekken 8 currently consists of Jin Kazama, Kazuya Mishima, Jun Kazama, Paul Phoenix, Marshall Lowe, King, Jack-8, Lars Alexandersson, and Nina Williams.
New combat system for Tekken 8 with “aggressive”philosophy
Game Director Kouhei “Nakatsu”Ikeda and Executive Director Katsuhiro Harada revealed four things that have been improved or added to Tekken 8:
- The rage system has been part of the license since Tekken 6, where it was activated when fighters were low on health and increased their damage. Tekken 7 introduced Rage Arts, powerful attacks that can only be activated while enraged, and Rage Drives, more powerful versions of regular attacks. If Rage Drives were dropped in Tekken 8, the principle is still there and Rage Arts deals more damage than you take when they are activated. The main change is that each character’s Rage Art activates the same way.
- The reset bar is new, although it is inspired by similar ideas in Tekken Tag Tournament. It allows you to recover some of the damage taken during a block or air combo, but where the red bar of Tekken Tag Tournament represented health restored over time, here the white bar is restored when going on the offensive. While there is no time limit limiting the time it takes to regenerate health, the white gauge can be reduced by weak attacks.
- The heat system allows fighters to increase their strength for a short time, entering a state where they are covered in blue flames, and their abilities improve. For example, Marshall Lowe’s nunchuck attacks become more powerful, and King’s run becomes Power Crush. While on Heat, attacks deal splinter damage even when blocked (although this splinter damage is on cooldown and cannot be knocked out), and two special actions are available. One is Heat Smash, a super attack that appears to be a replacement for Rage Drive from Tekken 7, and the other is Heat Dash, which acts as a cancel and therefore dash. Fighters can enter a heat state whenever they want by pressing R1, which is called Heat Burst, but it also automatically activates whenever a character uses a Heat Engager. These are the most important moves of each character,
- The arcade style is described as “authentic traditional Tekken game style with a high degree of freedom”, while the special style is an evolution of the Easy Combo and Assist features from Tekken 7.
Tekken 8 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC (Steam).