Tekken 8 returns to Evolution for the second year in 2025, and will once again enjoy a Sunday finals position. Last year, Arslan Ash extended his dominance into the Tekken 8 win with a fifth Evo title, taking Grand Finals over his Pakistani countryman Atif.
Evo is a Tekken World Tour premier event, with boatloads of points available for players looking to qualify for the tour finals at the end of the year. There are also four Esports World Cup spots available, with tons of talent from all across the world fighting to qualify. Will Arslan be able to win a sixth Evo? Will another one of the strong Pakistani players follow in his footsteps? Will Evo Japan 2025 champion Knee bring the Evo Vegas trophy back to Korea? Or will somebody else step up and take the crown?
SETTING THE STAGE
Dragunov dominated Evo 2024, taking four of the Top 8 slots. He hasn't had the same kind of bracket presence in Tekken 8['s second season. Compare that to Evo Japan 2025, where there wasn't a single repeat character among the 12 represented in the Top 8. This isn't to suggest that the Tekken 8 cast is perfectly balanced, but in recent tournaments, no single character is standing out in the same way. Despite remaining the least-picked characters in the game, the bears won the Tekken World Tour Finals last year thanks to Rangchu's expert piloting, after all, so don't count anybody out just for their character choice.
Since Evo 2024, Tekken 8 has seen a number of DLC character releases: Lidia, Heihachi, Clive, Anna, and Fahkumram will all be legal for their first Evo Vegas Tekken 8 bracket in 2025. According to data from ewgf.gg, Heihachi and Anna have seen by far the most usage out of these characters in online play. Anna has reached the greatest heights in offline play, highlighted by Atif's win at CEO 2025.
MAJOR STORYLINES
Arslan Ash is back for yet another Evo title defense run. With his win at Evo 2024 in Tekken 8's main bracket, Arslan Ash added to the four Evo titles he won in Tekken 7: Evo Vegas 2019 and 2023 as well as Evo Japan 2020 and 2023. Since then, he's added wins at Thunderstruck 2024 and Battle Arena Melbourne 15 with top 8 finishes at the Tekken World Tour Finals 2024, COMBO BREAKER 2025 and CEO 2025. Unfortunately, Arslan missed out on a chance at title number 6 at Evo Japan 2025 due to visa issues, but he's been in strong form and should be considered a favorite to make it happen in Las Vegas. While most of his Tekken 8 results over the past year have come with Nina, he busted out an Anna and a Zafina at CEO, so he could reach into the pocket if necessary at Evo as well.
Since placing second last year, Atif has been playing almost perfect Tekken. He hasn't finished worse than second place at a major tournament since then. But one can understand why he was starting to get tired of silver. First it was Evo 2024, then the Esports World Cup 2024, then the Tekken World Tour Finals, and then it happened again at COMBO BREAKER. There were some wins in between, FV Major 2024, HAVOC 4, and Riyadh Clash2 among them, but at the biggest stages, Atif always wound up in second despite his superhuman consistency. That is, until CEO 2025, when Atif went all-in on Anna and finally went all the way, taking out LowHIgh, JeonDDing and ULSAN along the way. Evo 2024 was the start of his second place run last year. Can he make that final step to the top this year?
Mulgold has hit a new gear in 2025. After a third place finish at January's SOOP Tekken League championships and a second place finish at Evo Japan 2024, Mulgold won COMBO BREAKER 2025, the highest profile event win of his career thus far. Although he's dabbled with other characters, like Akuma back in Tekken 7 and Feng and Alisa in Tekken 8, he's been a Claudio main for his whole career, and his COMBO BREAKER win was all Claudio. He'll be looking to keep his momentum going at Evo 2025, where he'll be looking to improve on last year's 33rd place finish.
Knee is Tekken's great constant. He added a fourth Evo trophy to his case with his win at Evo Japan 2025. With a Tekken 8 win, he has now won Evo titles in three Tekken games thanks to his 2013 Tekken Tag Tournament 2 win and his 2018 and 2022 Tekken 7 wins. Knee has entered four major tournaments in 2025 and reached Top 8 in all four of them, a level of consistency that he was struggling to reach in 2024. He also seems to have settled on a character: Bryan Fury, who he has relied on ever since last year's Esports World Cup. Last year at Evo 2024, he placed 17th with Dragunov. Can he push farther with Bryan this time?
Ulsan is showing that it's still possible to be a consistent player in the wild world of Tekken 8. At his four biggest events of the year thus far (SOOP Tekken League Finals, Evo Japan, Battle Arena Melbourne, CEO), Ulsan has finished no worse than 5th, including a victory at the SOOP Tekken League finals over Chanel, Mangja and Mulgold. Ulsan has primarily used Dragunov in Tekken 8, but will also bust out Reina and Lars. He has found himself in Top 4 each of the last two years at Evo Vegas, bowing out at 3rd and 4th respectively. Can he make the next step this year?
Rangchu remains the world's premier bear player. He won his second Tekken World Tour Finals in 2024, using Kuma to tear through the competition, including wins over Arslan Ash, Atif, Shadow20z and Raef. He hasn't won a major yet in 2025, but he's been ever-present late in brackets, with Top 8 finishes at the SOOP Tekken League Finals, Evo Japan 2025, COMBO BREAKER 2025, and Battle Arena Melbourne 15. He finished 9th at Evo 2024, but if his recent form is any indication, he has a great shot to make it to the final stage this year.
Tekken 8 has too deep of a talent pool to highlight every strong player with a shot at making a deep run at this year's Evo. Here are a few more players with strong recent results that deserve highlighting and are worth keeping any eye on as they run through bracket:
KingReyJr has been one of the strongest North American Tekken players this year. His best showing came at Brussels Challenge Major, where he won an all-USA Grand Finals over Shadow 20z to pick up by far his biggest win of his career. The Asuka player finished 49th at Evo 2024, but given his growth in the past year, he's capable of going much farther in 2025.
Evo Japan 2024 champion Chikurin's best finish in 2025 is a fifth place finish at Battle Arena Melbourne 15. He has reached higher peaks, to be sure. But he has been consistent enough to still remain in the Top 10 of Tekken World Tour 2025 points as of the first weekend of July. The Lili player (who has also shown a Clive at recent events) can't be slept on.
LowHigh, the 2017 Tekken 7 Evo champion, is trying to return to an Evo final bracket for the first time since his 2nd place finish at Evo Japan 2024. He came close at Evo 2024 and Evo Japan 2025, finishing 9th and 13th respectively, and he has managed to pilot his Bryan to Top 8 at a pair of majors this year at COMBO BREAKER and the SOOP Tekken League championship. At his best, he's absolutely a Top 8 contender.
Tibetano has been one of Spain's best Tekken 8 players, and was looking like one of Europe's best in 2025 with placings like 5th at Brussels Challenge Major and 4th at the European Tekken Cup 3 finals. But he ascended to a new level this summer when he claimed his first major title at The MIXUP 2025, winning over Mangja and JeonDDing. Keep a close on eye on this Spanish Asuka's bracket run.
Shadow20z's 65th place finish at Evo 2024 was uncharacteristic, and he showed it by placing 7th at both the Tekken World Tour 2024 finals and Evo Japan 2025. He's also the reigning Frosty Faustings champion. Those results primarily came with Zafina, but he's also been experimenting with Anna of late, which could be the key to carrying that form into Evo Vegas 2025.
All these players and more will scrap it out at the biggest Tekken 8 tournament of the year starting August 1st in Las Vegas. Make sure to subscribe to Evo on YouTube so you don't miss any of the action.
