“Legacy knowledge has been removed”: Knee accuses Tekken 8 Season 2 of catering to new players over pros

The Tekken 8 Season 2 update has not been sitting well with FGC players, and now pro player Bae ‘Knee’ Jae-Min has explained exactly what he doesn’t like about the changes, calling the season ‘selfish’.

Previous Evo champion Knee recently broke down the elements of Season 2 that he didn’t like in a massive rant on X. When asked if he believed that developers would listen to him, he replied that it seemed as though they wanted ‘rookies to come in and beat veterans’ instead.

When Season 2 dropped earlier this month, competitive players flocked to Tekken 8 to check out the changes. The result was an increased player count but also a massive influx of negative reviews on Steam, turning the sentiment into ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’.

The FGC has been complaining about the unpopular changes made to characters that don’t seem to fit original playstyles and strip away some of the mechanics players have attempted to master for years — it seemed like developers were hoping new players could catch up by removing legacy knowledge and simplifying strategies.

Following the Season 2 update, Knee started sharing gameplay clips on X, showing how he was forced to play after the changes. He then went on to passionately explain what he’s noticed after playing the game after Season 2.

“Honestly, I think the developers’ idea should be different from the player. However, I think it would be nice to accept some feedback, but I don’t care if they don’t listen. Tekken 8 is already [getting] negative reviews,” Knee said.

Knee’s first issue with the update was that the combos felt too long and dealt too much damage. The second issue was simplifying mind games, which made the game feel ‘boring’ because it was easy to implement these simplified strategies and safe solutions.

Knee also noted that the Heat System, implemented in Tekken 8, had become ‘unbalanced’ in the update. He noted that many of the Heat moves felt as though they had ‘less risk’ to pull off, making it a bit of a no-brainer to spam stronger moves constantly without worry since they’re easy to pull off and recover.

One of his biggest concerns was the removal of some trickier moves that competitive players have spent years mastering. These would reward players with more experience in tough situations.

“The legacy knowledge has just been removed,” Knee noted. “Air moves can’t be low parried and hold moves can’t be parried. So we have no way to [be tactical] in certain situations. Did it have to be removed?”

Other issues included characters with weapons getting too long of a range, too many 50-50 situations that make it difficult to block stronger incoming moves and chip damage taking away too much health.

Knee added: “Veterans have invested a lot of time and put a lot of effort into it. So it’s a fun game to play when you increase your knowledge and learn your skills. Actually, I don’t know why a veteran should have a high probability of losing to a beginner or a rookie. Isn’t that contradictory?”

Knee isn’t alone in this sentiment. Negative reviews keep flowing in on Steam, all accusing developers of not understanding the characters and simplifying gameplay to appeal to beginners.

This has been a big focus of fighting games the last few years, with many developers worrying that titles like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 have become too difficult for newbies to pick up. However, the competitive community feels that the developers have taken this concern too far, punishing top players in the process.

Developers have responded to the ongoing criticism but the FGC is skeptical and not expecting a big overhaul. However, if nothing is done, it’s likely that pro players will drop ahead of Evo 2025, the largest fighting game event of the year.