Giant hats and cubes are ruining Tekken 8's online matchmaking

A familiar threat has found itself plaguing the online lobbies of Tekken 8. They may not be common, but giant metal cubes, pink hats and other absurdly large objects are haunting Bandai Namco's excellent new fighting game, just like they did in Tekken 7 and Soul Caliber 6.

The reason why this is such a problem for those who run into them is because the size of these objects obscures attacks and movement, making it hard to counter or predict what your opponent is going to do next. As of writing, there has been no official communication from Bandai Namco, game director Katsuhiro Harada, or producer Michael Murray on the matter.

Videos first started appearing online earlier in the week, as one user highlighted a giant metallic cube on Alisa, whereas earlier today another player took to Reddit to expose the same thing with a Yoshimitsu engulfed in a beautiful pink hat. While the latter player won, it's not exactly a fair fight.

So, how is this happening? This whole problem centres around optional cosmetics you can apply to fighters in Tekken 8. The problem has roots in the past though. Ever since Tekken 7 has been around and playable from home computers, those able to jump in and mod the game have been able to break open the limiters on how large you can make these cosmetics and expand them far larger than intended. Once done, this is the result; horrendously unfair fights at your fingertips, offline and online.

So with this issue seemingly one that's hard to solve, or not too high of a priority, what can be done? Well, on a related note, the Tekken 8 team has publically expressed their intent to ban players who have been caught plugging - the act of disconnecting from matches they're about to lose in order to avoid losing ranked points. If you're able to record an offending player, shoot it over to Bandai Namco support and hopefully the account will get clapped.