Virtua Fighter Makes It's Long Awaited Return

Fighting Game

The surge in popularity of fighting games continues as another long dormant series, the pioneer of 3D fighting games, Virtua Fighter had a new entry revealed at the game awards. This is the most recent long dormant fighter announced as SNK along with releasing Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves next year, also has a new entry in Art of Fighting in development. (Please let Killer Instinct and Marvel vs Capcom return too)

Being developed by Ryo Ga Gotoku studio, the studio behind the Like a Dragon series, this marks the first new entry for Virtua Fighter since 2006’s Virtua Fighter 5 (although the game has seen updates such as Ultimate showdown). A trailer with a small snippet of gameplay featuring series mainstays Sarah Bryant and Akira briefly fighting.

Sega didn’t stop there however as they had a direct for Virtua Fighter after the game awards which showed they have huge plans for the franchise going forward. An update for Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown. The update looks substantial as it features character rebalancing, readjustments to the game’s weight system, some simplification to some of the games mechanics and characters getting some of their moves re-added.

On top of the update, a PC version titled Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O was announced and is slated for release on January 27th and will feature a net code update on top of the balance adjustments. R.E.V.O currently has an open beta going to test it’s net code for those interested. Also being added are bonuses for the 30th anniversary of the franchise such as bonus cosmetics, including swimsuits, some that mimic the old polygon style and Yakuza themed skins, looks at preproduction for the games in the series and an in game music track spanning the Series, including previously unreleased tracks.

That would be enough for most but Sega even announced a competitive E-sports series dubbed the Virtua Fighter open championship starting in spring of 2025 and has already been announced for the line up of EVO Japan. A worldwide discord channel was also announced.

While I personally don’t have as much history with Virtua Fighter as I do other fighting games, I’m more than aware of its influence and I know people within the fighting game community are ecstatic about this announcement. I’m happy to not only see Sega treat such an important franchise with the respect it deserves but, also indicating they plan on making it one of their major players in the future.

While there’s no release date for the new Virtua Fighter yet, the 2.0 update for Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown is available now and R.E.V.O will launch on PC on January 27th. Hopefully a version of R.E.V.O will launch on PS5 and Xbox as well at some point.

For this interesting in seeing the VF Direct in its entirety you can do so below:

DeMandre "LetalisVenator" Pressley

A lifelong gamer who enjoys playing on every platform. Eventually, I grew to love fighting games in particular and began to compete and even win competitions for some games, primarily the 2013 revival of killer instinct. Outside of gaming I also have aspirations of being a comic book artist with a few ideas of my own im developing in my head. When reviewing any game I try to keep my mind open and avoid nitpicking too much. It takes a lot for something to detract me from truly enjoying it so I may not focus on smaller details the way some others might do. I enjoy almost any genre, just don't ask me to play horror games or puzzle games.