Bandai Namco reveals new Tekken 7 update and teases future Tekken project at Evo 2022

With the end of Evolution Championship Series 2022 and a supreme play by Jaemin ‘KNEE’ Bae in Tekken 7 competition, Bandai Namco, the developer of the iconic fighter game, decided to reveal the plans for the current iteration of the game as well as the next-gen project. 

After a long wait in the venue, Bandai Namco announced a free update for Tekken 7, which was released seven years ago. The new patch, which will feature battle balance adjustments, will roll out on August 17 with fixes for all heroes across the roster. However, more details will be announced soon by the developer. 

 

The announcement of Tekken World Tour Finals 2022 

Bandai Namco’s second announcement is dedicated to the fans of professional fighting competitions, as the developers revealed the date and venue for Tekken World Tour 2022 Global Finals. The concluding event of this year’s Tekken season is set to be held on February 4-5, 2023 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

The Tekken World Tour 2022 is divided into three stages where the first one is the Regional Qualifier scheduled to run from June 24 to October 3. Based on their performance, participants of this stage will earn points towards Regional Leaderboards, with the top-ranked players entering the regional qualification. 

The tour’s second stage consists of 13 regional qualifiers which are scheduled for late October to December. The best fighters on the leaderboard will then be moved to Regional Final. However, regions such as the Middle East, Philippines & East Asia, and Oceania won’t host a final qualifier. Instead, the best player according to the leaderboard will be selected for the final stage — the world final in Amsterdam. 

The tour covers competitive regions all around the world, namely Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Middle East, Oceania and Pakistan as a united region.  

A hint for Tekken 8? 

At the end of EVO 2022 presentation, Bandai Namco hinted that it might be working on the next project in the Tekken franchise. There was a clip of pixelated Kazuya Mishima, an iconic character of the game series, who dumps someone’s body from the cliff — the body seems to be his father Heihachi. Then the image becomes more photorealistic, where Kazuya smiles and says “Get ready”.

According to the lore of the game, Heihachi threw small Kazuya in the same way in Tekken 7, so this scene might be a hint for either the reboot of the series or a future Tekken 8 with a continuation of the story. However full details are yet to be revealed.  

Header credit: Bandai Namco