Tekken 7 Patch 5.00 Battle Update is Live

Among all of the announcements at EVO 2022 a couple of weeks back, some of the most exciting were for the Tekken series. Not only did we learn the location of the Tekken World Tour finals and have a small teaser for the next entry in the series, but it was also announced that Tekken 7 would be receiving an update with battle adjustments and “new tactics.” That update is now live with the 5.00 patch.

A news post on the Bandai Namco Entertainment website lists out some of the new elements introduced and provides a link to a long PDF file listing what’s new for each character. We’re not going to go over everything, but we’ll break it down in general.

The new update for #TEKKEN 7 is live!
Patch 5.00 includes battle balance adjustments, new "wall crush inducing hit/guard" features, additional network information display during online battles and more!

Read the patch notes: https://t.co/Oe8AJmnKu1 pic.twitter.com/JvAPGRqoFS

— TEKKEN (@TEKKEN) August 17, 2022

Technically, this update has brought changes to every character. Some have been nerfed or buffed through tweaks to their moves, such as characters like Asuka, Leroy, and Lidia that have had significant nerfs/buffs. That being said, every character has a single move changed to fit in with the previously mentioned new tactics and for a lot of them, this is the only change made.

As many were expecting, “new tactics” meant a new mechanic and interactions when an opponent is near a wall. The new mechanic is called “Wall Crush” and when used correctly it will cause them to briefly enter a specific state and give the attacker a frame advantage to start attacking again. It comes in two forms: wall crush-inducing hit and wall crush-inducing guard. The first only occurs on hit, while the second only occurs when the opponent is blocking. What’s important to remember is that each character only has one move that’s been tweaked with one of these properties and won’t have access to both.

Rounding out this update are overall stability fixes and network information display. The latter will display the current ping, delay frames, rollback frames, as well as connection strength. These will all be displayed in the bottom corner of the screen during online battles.

It’s too early to tell how this new mechanic and the various balance changes will affect the meta. Entire rounds can be decided when opponents have their backs against the wall and this new wall crush mechanic will make for some fun 50/50 situations. This is likely the last update we’ll see for Tekken 7 with the next entry on the horizon. For a game that launched in arcades in 2015 and then on home platforms in 2017, these changes should provide a decent final shake-up before the community gets ready for the next battle.