Tekken 8 will have cross-play, a series first
It'll also have rollback netcode.
"Of course" Tekken 8 will have crossplay, says game director Katsuhiro Harada, allowing players on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC to play alongside each other in a multiplayer mode that'll also include fighting games' much-favored system of rollback netcode. Harada made the reveal in response to a fan on Twitter.
Crossplay? Of course I will.BTWWhen the previous generation consoles were released, I had already proposed crossplay between the two platformers. However, at that time, they were at odds with each other over their mutual interests (and P2P security issue) & repeatedly refused. https://t.co/I8b38YfePhApril 9, 2023
Along the way, Harada also threw a bit of shade at Sony and Microsoft, noting that he'd wanted to implement crossplay in the Tekken 7 era, and went into development wanting to do so, but Microsoft and Sony's stance of being at odds over console crossplay was a real barrier. That's despite the companies' statements that they were open to it.
"Remember when they announced they were open to crossplay a few years ago? But in reality, they didn't actively support third parties at the time, and the hurdles were actually quite high," Harada said.
Rollback netcode, on the other hand, is a welcome but expected part of a modern fighting game. It's code designed to make playing fighting games online a more competitive, reactive experience—a big deal in what is perhaps the biggest gaming genre for second-to-second twitch responses. The code serves to smooth out gameplay by showing what players do immediately while simultaneously predicting what their opponents will do, then speedily "rolling it back" if the opponent does otherwise.
That's as opposed to older delay-based netcode, which would always wait until it had both players' inputs before acting. Rollback greatly smooths play by reducing the lag time between inputs and animations.
As to why it hadn't been previously announced? Harada says that it's because people would just be dismissive or disappointed that they're implementing a "standard" feature. In short, they didn't want to hear people whine about a lackluster announcement which is... actually something technically impressive that takes hundreds of hours to code and implement.
Oh, and speaking of technically impressive: The PC recommended specs will probably be pretty intense.
"It's not confirmed yet, but if you want to play 4K native, the higher the specs, the better," said Harada in response to a fan asking for them.
"One thing I can say is that if you are in an environment where you have to worry about specs, I recommend playing on a console," he continued.
Tekken 8 is shaping up to be the fighting game event of the year. You can check out every confirmed character so far right here on PC Gamer.