Blind Tekken 8 player reaches one of the game’s highest ranks after two years of grinding

A blind Tekken 8 player is inspiring the fighting game community after reaching Tekken God rank despite completely losing one eye and suffering from limited tunnel vision in the other.

BlindGuitarFox is a Twitch streamer and competitive Tekken player who was born with glaucoma in both eyes.

Glaucoma is a severe condition caused by a buildup of fluid inside the eye, and often has no symptoms in its early stages, which makes it difficult to detect. As the fluid accumulates, pressure inside the eye grows, damaging the optic nerve and leading to blindness.

BlindGuitarFox lost their right eye completely during Tekken 8‘s launch in 2024, and now relies on their left eye to play, which only has “very limited, blurry tunnel vision.”

Despite these difficulties, BlindGuitarFox has managed to overcome the odds and has reached Tekken God rank using Asuka after two years of grinding. This is one of the highest ranks in Tekken 8, preceding Tekken God Supreme and 9 ranks of Tekken God of Destruction.

Blind Tekken player wants accessibility improvements after hitting Tekken God

The player described their experience in a viral post on Reddit, explaining that they rely on using maximum damage combos when they’re able to get a correct read on an opponent.

“I struggle to distinguish things like strings/certain moves, and my relation to the wall on some stages. Every throw break has to be a guess, I can’t see well enough to know what hand comes out first,” they said.

“I can only really punish if I get the read, as I can’t see well enough to react even when I know it. I decided to play to my strengths and learn how to inflict as much damage as possible with my main.”

They also revealed that they prefer not to use Tekken 8’s accessibility features, saying they make things “unfair” in tournaments. As the tournament standard requires players to compete side by side on a single monitor and single PS5, this means that both of them would be seeing the accessibility features, which simply aren’t tenable for competitors who don’t need them.

“I am really glad it’s there, but much could be done to improve it,” they admitted. “…I think this is unfair, because these settings can look very unusual if you never used them before, so I imagine that would be a bit overwhelming for my opponent.”

BlindGuitarFox mentioned that they’d hoped to meet Tekken 8 producer Katsuhiro Harada and discuss improvements for these features, but now that he has stepped back from the series, they will “have to track down someone else.”

They also credited fellow blind fighting game player BlindWarriorSven as their inspiration, who similarly went viral after winning a streamed match at Evo 2023 while blindfolded.