The upcoming 3D fighting game Tekken 8 will seemingly have crossplay support, allowing players on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S to match with each other in the game’s online multiplayer modes. The news was casually confirmed by longtime Tekken series director Katsuhiro Harada on Twitter, in response to a question posed to him by a player.
‘Can we get crossplay harada’, asked Jermaine Jones, to which Harada replied, ‘Crossplay? Of course I will.’
Read: Tekken 8 Preview – Hands-on impressions, insights from director Harada
Crossplay is now a common feature among many video games with online multiplayer support – a key feature to ensure a robust community of players to group up with, no matter when you decide to play a game.
However, just a few years ago, console platform holders like Microsoft and Sony were in an endless holding pattern as they seemingly weighed up the pros and cons of allowing game developers to communicate across rival console ecosystems.
Sony in particular seemed staunchly protective of its ecosystem at the time, but eventually, the runaway success of a crossplay trial on Fortnite seemed to break the standoff for other games.
After confirming the existence of crossplay for Tekken 8, Harada reminisced about his attempts to implement crossplay into the previous game in the series, Tekken 7.
‘When the previous generation consoles were released, I had already proposed crossplay between the two platformers [sic]. However, at that time, they were at odds with each other over their mutual interests (and P2P security issue) & repeatedly refused.’
‘Remember when they announced they were open to crossplay a few years ago? But in reality, they didn’t actively support third parties at the time, and the hurdles were actually quite high.’
‘There are still some problems left, but it will be possible.’
Soon after, Harada also confirmed the existence of rollback netcode in Tekken 8, meaning that the online experience should be very good, even if players are on opposite sides of the world.
Read: What is Rollback Netcode in fighting games?
Tekken 7 still sees a very large amount of play in professional fighting game circuits, eight years after its initial release in arcades. The implementation of crossplay in Tekken 8 will undoubtedly be a boon for the upcoming game’s initial launch, allowing players to connect with what will likely be a thriving pool of similarly-skilled competitors from around the world, no matter which console they’re playing on.
Tekken 8 will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. No release date has been announced at the time of writing.