For the past several months, Bandai Namco has been steadily confirming Tekken 8's roster. The most recent announcements have been Hwoarang, Lili, and Xiaoyu, bringing the total to 17. That's starting to sound like a full roster (Tekken 7 launched with 20 before eventually arriving at 52 with DLC) so we're expecting the character announcements to slow.

However, we might have an entirely different announcement in store. As spotted by SteamDB, Steam's back end recently received a new package that calls itself the "Tekken 8 Playtest." This playtest isn't live on the Steam storefront as of the time of this writing, but given the title, we can only assume that this will be coming soon as a sort of demo.

Related: Tekken 8 Preview: Thrilling Fists Of Fury

Tekken 8 still doesn't have a release date, so this playtest is most likely a technical one, either testing mechanics, server infrastructure, or perhaps both. Summer Game Fest is starting next week, which would be the most likely time for Bandai Namco to confirm the details of this playtest.

SteamDB Tekken 8 Playtest
via SteamDB

While this is promising news, we should take this database entry with a grain of salt. Bandai Namco might have just loaded playtest data into Steam for reasons other than to give players a first taste of Tekken 8. Given that Tekken World Tour is still being played on Tekken 7, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for Bandai Namco to release Tekken 8 until after the World Tour is over.

We'll be sure to keep an eye on Tekken 8's Steam page for more, and we'll be watching Summer Game Fest to see if Bandai Namco makes an announcement.

We'll also be looking to Bandai Namco to see if the publisher makes another mistake and releases game info early. That happened with the recent accidental release of a gameplay trailer for Bryan Fury by Bandai Namco's European Twitter. The video was hastily deleted, but the internet never forgets. This led to a senior team member apologizing for the gaffe, admitting that he felt "bad" for the "dev team who gave up weekends to work on it."

Tekken 8 Devil Kazuya Mashima

One character we likely won't be seeing in Tekken 8 is Heihachi Mishima, Kazuya Mishima's late father. At the end of Tekken 7, Kazuya punched Heihachi so hard that his heart stopped, and then he threw his dad's corpse into an active volcano. This apparently was a level of dead that even surprised former Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada who had ordered his team to "make sure" Heihachi's death was "convincing this time." Doesn’t get much more convincing than tossed in a volcano.

Next: Tekken 8’s Katsuhiro Harada And Michael Murray Talk New Gen, Collaborations, And Heihachi