If you thought the player response to Tekken 8 Season 2 was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Nah, to be fair, the overwhelmingly negative response to Season 3 — which launched just days ago — is pretty much a continuation of the chaos that Season 2 caused.
You may recall that many players — particularly those in hardcore circles and those playing at a professional level — were demanding action after Season 2 threw the game's competitive balance out of whack.
Bandai Namco issued a number of "emergency patches" across the weeks and months that followed, but it drew the line at making any significant changes while the Tekken World Tour was on.
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So, players had been waiting patiently for Season 3 to right the many wrongs of its predecessor — but as of right now, the update has only served to damage Tekken 8's reputation even further.
The bottom line is that Season 3 — despite being marketed as a "back to basics" patch — does little to revert many of Season 2's most controversial adjustments.
For example, aggressive play, primarily fuelled by the Heat system, was taken to a bit of an extreme in Season 2, and while Season 3 does address some aspects — like being able to elongate combos in certain situations — it still doesn't make the kind of sweeping changes that so many players have been pining for.
Indeed, Season 3 is full of questionable tweaks where balance is concerned. Some characters have — rightfully, in the eyes of most players — been nerfed, but others have received inexplicable buffs, and eyebrow-raising alterations to their general style of play.
The result is, again, an outpouring of negativity, which is now manifesting as a flood of damning user reviews on platforms like Steam.
It's all looking rather grim, and it feels like faith in the Tekken 8 dev team is at an all-time low. What we're seeing is a backlash against inaccurate marketing; both Season 2 and Season 3 have been accused of selling gameplay concepts that simply haven't come to be.
Ever since Season 2 released around this time last year, players have been requesting a return to more familiar Tekken territory, with a greater emphasis on defensive techniques like sidestepping, and clear counters to certain mechanics.
But it's become crystal clear that Bandai Namco won't back away from its aggressive vision for Tekken 8, which focuses on locking down the opponent with pressure and 50/50 guessing games.
It'll be very interesting to see how the developer responds to this current backlash, because as things stand, Tekken 8 has been in a heavily criticised state for over a year now, and it's going to take some serious effort to repair the bond between player and game.
What's your take on Tekken 8 at this point? Perform a wall-to-wall combo in the comments section below.