Tekken World Tour 2018 announced with five stops in SEA

Bandai Namco Entertainment and Twitch have announced the Tekken World Tour for 2018, an eight-month competitive season across Asia Pacific, the Americas, and Europe. Players and fans can look forward to five planned stops in Southeast Asia, spanning from March all the way to October, with registrations now open.

Updated with the release of Tekken 7, last year’s finals took place in California, USA, where 31-year-old Byung-moon “Qudans” Son soared out of semi-retirement to be the undisputed King of the Iron Fist. Qudans was one of three South Koreans who made it to the final Top 8 brackets, accompanied by Japan’s dark horse “Noroma”.

The 2018 edition will see 40 tournaments in all, the first of which falls on 16 March at Final Round in Georgia, USA. It’ll then be followed up by the Thaiger Uppercut on 24 March in Bangkok, Thailand, before swinging back to the Americas on 30 March with the Norcal Regionals in California.

Asia Pacific has proven to be a dominant force in the world series these past few years, which is why you’ll see at least one AP destination in the months after. For SEA specifically, we’re looking at the following tournaments:

• 24-25 March – Bangkok, Thailand at Thaiger Uppercut
• 7-8 July – Jakarta, Indonesia at Abuget Cup
• 14-15 July – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at FX V SEA Major
• 15-16 September – Makati, Philippines at Rev Major
• 13-14 October – Singapore at SEA Major

Bandai Namco have also revised the leaderboard format, now awarding global Ranking Points based on participants’ local results. The top 19 players at the end of the season will automatically qualify for the finals in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in November. A final slot is reserved for the winner of the Last Chance Qualifier, to be determined at the finals event itself.

Tekken 7 is out for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

If you haven’t seen it, catch 2017’s nail-biting grand finals between Qudans and EchoFox’s Choi “Saint” Jinwoo (or any of the other bouts) on Twitch.

Photo: Screen capture / YouTube