Tekken 8's development team has released a statement promising to address the "strong community response" arising after hundreds of fans left negative Steam reviews, bringing the fighting game's recent reviews rating down to "Mostly Negative" on Valve's platform.

With hundreds of Tekken fans sharing their unhappiness via Steam reviews and the feedback portal over the last week or so, the Tekken team has responded to the "large volume of feedback," revealing it has received "over 700 submissions" and is reviewing each one.

The problem, it seems, is that despite assuring the fanbase that it's listening to feedback and would be going "back to basics," some players felt that Season 3 "tripled down on everything the players had issues with," citing "balance changes that made no sense, claiming to be focusing on making the game play a certain way while actively updating the game to be the opposite," "effectively ending up with what was one of the worst-feeling fighting games in a long while."

"Season 3 was the final straw," said one player on Steam, encapsulating the views of hundreds of other players. "It’s clear the balance philosophy is no longer about competitive integrity or player satisfaction. Every major patch feels like it does the opposite of what the players want. There are better fighting games out there that actually respect the player's time and feedback."

Now, in a statement posted today (March 25), the team said it is "reviewing each report on a daily basis while proceeding with the necessary responses and adjustments."

"In Ver.3.00.00, we implemented adjustments aimed at maintaining each character’s individuality while reducing excessive rewards — particularly those stemming from the Heat system and character-specific enhanced states — in order to improve overall balance," the statement began. "However, we recognize that the battle experience we intended to deliver has not fully met your expectations.

"Moving forward, we will continue to pursue a battle experience where offense and defense are balanced around the Heat system, allowing players to engage in meaningful mind games and decision-making against their opponents. While maintaining the direction of the Ver.3.00.00 adjustments, we will continue addressing elements that still result in excessive rewards or one-sided gameplay. These issues will be improved step by step through individual behavior fixes and performance adjustments."

Consequently, from today and moving into tomorrow, March 26, publisher Bandai Namco will release "an emergency patch," focused on "fixing critical bugs and unintended behaviors" and the "highest priorities that arise from feedback submitted via the Tekken Dev Feedback Portal, with the highest priority placed on the early identification of bugs and unintended behaviors".

"The priority of responses is determined with reference to the level of community reaction (engagement) within the official Discord server," the statement added.

Adjustments to the battle system and character performance will be made based on a "comprehensive evaluation, including submissions to the portal," and the team has made it easier for players to identify and report the battle and system courtesy of a new feedback category called… well, "requests related to battle and system."

"We are currently reviewing priorities while considering fixes for bugs, adjustments to behaviors that result in excessive rewards, and performance tuning centered on the Heat system," the team added. "Fixes that can be addressed in the short term will be implemented sequentially, while changes with significant impact will be introduced step by step through each update after sufficient verification."

There are also plans to introduce new Discord channels in which players can discuss requests with each other (presumably because that's preferable to having these discussions on the very public Steam review page), and the team did advise that while some players have requested a reply, for now it will instead focus on gameplay fixes.

Ver.3.00.02 will drop sometime in mid-April, focused on "other issues and behaviors individually reviewed and addressed in sequence," with 3.01 scheduled for late spring (Q2). 3.00.1

Last December, Katsuhiro Harada announced his departure from Bandai Namco, having worked on the Tekken series for 30 years. The 55-year-old Japanese video game developer legend, who worked on all the Tekken games right up until last year’s Tekken 8, said in a statement that the loss of close friends in his personal life and the retirement or death of senior colleagues had caused him to reflect on the time he has left as a creator.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.