Online lobbies you can run around in are all the rage in fighting games these days. There’s the Tower and Park from Guilty Gear Strive, the Battle Hub from Street Fighter 6, and so on. Tekken 8 joins the craze with the Tekken Fighting Lounge, and it’s got a little bit of everything. In fact, it might be the fighting game genre’s best online lobby yet.
The Tekken Fight Lounge is divided into four areas: the Battle Area, where you can fight against other players and watch other matches in progress; the Customization Shop, Iron Fist Outfitters, where you can spend your hard-earned fight money on customization options for your avatar; the Beach Area, where you can relax, enjoy the vibes, and most importantly, play Tekken Ball; and the Tekken Dojo.
If you’re familiar with online fighting game lobbies from the last few years, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the Tekken Fight Lounge works. You select a region, and then choose a Lounge from a list. Once you’re in, you can travel around the lobby freely, going in and out of the sections at will without any loading. The Tekken Fight Lounge has a little bit of everything. There’s a competitive atmosphere that harkens back to the glory days of arcades, but it’s also a place where players can hang out, make new friends, and build an online community.
According to Tekken 8 producer Michael Murray, the atmosphere is intentional. “It’s kind of like a love letter to arcade culture,” he said. “I’m old enough where I was able to experience that firsthand at various locations. First, when I studied abroad in Japan, I went to all the arcades and all the titles, all the fighting games you could ever want to play were there. It was amazing. Each had their own unique atmosphere. So the aesthetic look of it, you know that that made its way into this. The director, Nakatsu, and myself, we looked at various major arcades, even one of ours in London, the Namco one, which was really impressive.
“And so it’s not one particular one, but kind of the elements from all of these arcades. So that people who have been before will be like, ‘Oh, man, this is what it felt like, I miss it. It’s awesome. I can do it online from the comfort of my home any time I want.’ And then for new players who maybe haven’t ever been there, because they’ve disappeared a lot in the West. And we’ve seen kind of a revival of the 80s, and that whole culture of neon and stuff like that, right? So we’re thinking maybe that’s something that would even interest younger players, even if they haven’t been in arcades and say, ‘Okay, I’ve seen this in the movies or TV, or heard about it from OG players. Yeah, it does look like a lot of fun.’”
Players will probably spend most of their time in the arcade area, which of course has arcade machines, posters for other Bandai Namco games like Pac-Man, and a stage that shows trailers for Tekken 8. Several of these touches are subtle, like change machines, and a pinball area. It feels like a real arcade, which was the goal.
“We tried to kind of incorporate some of the elements, elements that made it fun outside of the visuals,” Murray said. “So we have the arcade machines…and you can have all these players’ avatars lined up and they’re watching someone play. And when I say watching, it means like, you can actually choose to spectate that person’s match. Or you can choose to get on that machine and play against other people in that group.”
Naturally, you can queue up for both Ranked and Quick matches at an arcade cabinet and practice in training mode while you wait for an opponent, but you can also queue for a match at the push of a button using the Match Anywhere feature. Match Anywhere lets you choose the mode you’d like to play, the skill range you’d like to be matched against, connection quality preferences, whether or not you’d like to enable cross-platform play, and select your character and side preference.
Once you’re queued up, you just have to wait until you’re matched with another player. In the meantime, you can wander around and enjoy the Fight Lounge, and interact with the other players. When you match against someone else, you’re shown the platform they’re playing on, their region and disconnect rate, and given the opportunity to accept or decline the match. It’s a good system that gives you everything you need to know about a game before you jump in. If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, you can try Group Matches, which randomly matches you against players sitting at the same group of arcade machines in the Battle Area.
Speaking of other players, you have plenty of ways to interact with them, something Murray emphasized as we talked about Fight Lounge. “You can chat with them; we have emotes, which means different canned animations and things you can do to communicate. We have a bunch of cool tech and stickers… that I think people are gonna like. And so the avatars themselves, it’s kind of a different type of customization from the characters. This is a whole new thing that you create to be a representation of yourself in the manner that you like. And so you’re interacting with your friends online with this avatar.”
I love the stickers, which feature Tekken characters and are based on things the Tekken community has shown a liking for in the past, but one of the coolest parts is the canned chat options automatically translate into whatever languages other players are using, so you can communicate with anyone you run into. And, naturally, there are bound to be a ton of dance parties.
Checking another player’s profile is as easy as walking up to them and interacting with them. Here, you’ll be able to see their stats, add friends, follow players, register rivals, block or report problematic players, chat with folks directly, and fight their Ghosts, one of Tekken 8’s coolest features. Lose a close set to a friend? Train against their Ghost and beat them next time. You can also see the profile of players you’ve battled without having to find their avatar in Fight Lounge, which is a great touch.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the Tekken Fight Lounge, however, is the return of Tekken Ball. Tekken Ball made its debut in Tekken 3 and returned in the Wii U version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and it’s back by popular demand in Tekken 8. If you’ve never played Tekken Ball, imagine hitting a giant beach ball back and forth between two Tekken characters. But this isn’t just a minigame; make no mistake, though; you’re still playing Tekken. “One of the cool things about the Tekken Ball is that you have access to a whole moveset with that particular character you choose that you use to hit the ball with,” Murray said. “And so you do that, the ball contains the damage and whoever fails to block that, they get blown to pieces, right? But you have all the different techniques that you want to use, it’s kind of fun to find how it affects the trajectory of the ball, the speed, etc. it’s a fun way for both advanced players but also newcomers to just take a break from the head-to-head action.”
If you’ve never played Tekken Ball before, you’re in for a treat. If you have, well… you know how crazy it can get. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
No matter what you’re here for – climbing the ladder in ranked matches, casual matches against friends new and old, a fun arcade-inspired atmosphere, a friendly (or not-so-friendly) game of Tekken Ball, training against somebody else’s Ghost, finding the right fit for your avatar, or just enjoying the vibe – the Fight Lounge seems to have it all while being a fun place to hang out and enjoy Tekken 8 however you like, and we’ll finally be able to get a glimpse of it during the Closed Beta Test. I’ll see you in the arcade; now I just have to find some quarters.
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