Tekken 8 is Bandai Namco's big budget successor to its long-running fighting series. This eighth-numbered entry will be debuting on current-gen systems and PC, and will run in Unreal Engine 5. Fans are eagerly anticipating its launch, with the signs pointing to a big comeback since the previous entry was a little lacking in certain departments.

Tekken 8 won't have anything to do with the previous gen so players are also naturally looking forward to new features. The long-time producer on the series Katsuhiro Harada has now confirmed that Tekken 8 will have cross-play and rollback netcode. Characteristically, the game director did it in a somewhat irascible manner.

Related: Tekken 8’s Katsuhiro Harada And Michael Murray Talk New Gen, Collaborations, And Heihachi

Harada likes to keep himself distracted with Twitter and has been busy responding to fan queries this weekend. In one, he replied rather amusingly to one particular query, and in turn confirmed a couple of features for the upcoming game. Don't worry about the language, it's not uncommon for Harada to come across abrasive. It's just part of his persona.

Tekken 8 will be the first game in the series to have cross-play, a feature that's becoming increasingly standard. But according to Harada, he had proposed adding cross-play to Tekken 7 but "the two platformers" (that would be Sony and Microsoft) had shot this down due to them being "at odds over their mutual interests".

As for rollback netcode, a quick explanation for why it's important for fighting games. Rollback is a system used for online play that effectively reduces perceived latency that can make for a far more responsive online multiplayer experience. For fighting games, which can hinge on individual frames and quick button presses, reducing latency is obviously important.

Kazuya Mishima Tekken 8

Tekken 7 supposedly had rollback but its implementation was criticised by players since it didn't really do all that much for latency. For more on that, you can peruse this thread of Tekken fans discussing the problems.

Hopefully, this will be improved in Tekken 8. Having had hands-on time with the game, we at TheGamer think the new game could be the most exciting entry in ages if it fulfils its promise and potential.

Next: Why Were There So Many Cars In Tony Hawk’s Underground?