Tekken 8 doesn’t have an official release date yet, but a listing on the Microsoft Store seemingly revealed the game is targeting a January 2024 release date—and popped up right as Bandai Namco raised internal information concerns.
In an update to the Microsoft Store backend, users discovered a listing for Tekken 8 listed for Jan. 26, 2024. Bandai hasn’t even provided a release window for the game yet, but plenty of speculation about the game dropping in early 2024 has circulated since it was first revealed last September.
No additional information was included in this “leak” but it does come at a very worrying time for Bandai and the Tekken Project as they have been dealing with other information dumps recently.
According to Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada, his team has been closing in on the individual, or individuals, responsible for a recent leak of various things like character intros details, images, and even what could be a blurry image of the full T8 launch roster from earlier this month. The roster leak was initially viewed as fake until Raven and newcomer Azucena were revealed at Evo 2023, giving the image a bit more credibility.
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Harada noted his displeasure with the leaks on Aug. 20 and talked through how some of the “minor information leaks” were not important because the information included in them had already been changed or deleted. He also confirmed that Bandai was close to locating the source of the leaks because they already knew what organizations were involved since that data was “only given to organizations that dare to be involved in debugging and localization.”
When asked about the validity of the leaks and how drastic some of those changes would be for something like a character, Harada shared that nothing bad would happen to the game as a result of this debacle.
“I would not delete with regard to the character. In any case, I will not do it to the detriment of the community,” Harada said. “I simply want to punish [the leaker] in terms of the contract and the law because I have almost identified a particular individual in a particular community contracting organization who is the leak.”
With this leaked date, it is very likely the Microsoft Store pushed an update live ahead of an upcoming announcement from Bandai and the Tekken team. We could even see more details about the release date, or another character reveal, at Gamescom Opening Night Live since Harada confirmed he will be there on Aug. 22.
