Tekken 8’s potentially harmful accessibility options have been updated before release

Tekken 8 has received an update that changes an accessibility mode flagged as potentially harmful.

Following the release of a Tekken 8 demo in December, a tweet praising the game’s colour blind/visually impaired accessibility filters went viral earlier this month.

One filter in particular displayed characters in black and white stripes, but several accessibility experts soon pointed out that the setting in question could do more harm than good.

“You urgently need to remove one of your filters (the striped one)”, accessibility specialist Ian Hamilton wrote in a tweet to Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada. “It cannot be present at launch as it may hospitalise players (or worse), in the same way as the infamous Pokémon episode.”

EA accessibility lead Morgan Baker said the filter had “induced an aura migraine”, while other players said it had caused vertigo.

However, a new update has just been released for the game – two days ahead of its official release – which removes the stripes altogether and replaces them with different patterns.

The new option retains the ‘Mask Filter’ name of the previous one, but this time it keeps the characters in full colour and applies two separate patterns over each of them.

The intensity of these patterns can be adjusted so they’re only light or can be made more visible, and players can choose between making the background grayscale or a simple black and white outline to make the fighters stand out more.

Harada had previously addressed plans to update the game’s accessibility features during this month’s Tekken World Tour 2023 Finals.

“Many people have been talking about the accessibility features in the demo for Tekken 8,” he said through producer and translator Michael Murray.

“Actually, that was just a work in progress, so we’ve actually tweaked that quite a bit to try to address some of the issues and to make sure that it works better for a wider variety of people.”

Further reading

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Review: Tekken 8 is a sensational sequel

Bandai Namco recaptures the excitement of the classic era with deep combat and meaty single-player modes

Tekken 8 – which will be released on January 26 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC – is critically acclaimed, with a Metacritic score of 90 on PS5, 87 on Xbox Series X/S and 94 on PC.

VGC’s Tekken 8 review calls the game “a sensational sequel”, saying: “With a renewed emphasis on single-player modes and a new Heat mechanic which ensures fights are more frenetic, it’s up there with Tekken 3 as one of the most exciting high points in the series.”