At the risk of sounding like a bit of a broken record, Fighting games are in quite a strong spot. There have been multiple drops over the past 3 years, with reviews and sales being strong for the heavy hitters like Street Fighter and Tekken.
Among those, there seems to be a strong number of IP-based fighters, based on Invincible, Marvel, and Avatar, all coming next year. In their early phases, all 3 games have been positively received by people who have played them. While I didn’t get to try Avatar, I tried both Invincible and Marvel Tokon and liked what I saw from both early on.
It got me thinking, what other popular IPS would it make sense to release a fighting game for? Fighting games are a good way to get a large number of characters represented in a franchise, and here are 6 IPs I think could get a lot of gamers excited in the current landscape.
Star Wars
Star Wars is debatably the most influential movie franchise in modern media, and while there have been plenty of well-received games, there haven’t been many fighting game attempts. There was one rather infamous one back on the PS1, but perhaps now would be the right time. Star Wars is a franchise so malleable that it could go a number of routes for a fighting game. It could easily work as a 1v1 or tag fighter like Invincible, Marvel, and 2XKO are doing, but I also think Star Wars could fill a void that may not be filled for some time.
Star Wars could perhaps go the route of a 3d weapon-based fighter. It’s unknown if we’re going to get another Soul Calibur game anytime soon, and given its lightsaber-based combat as well as the variety of other weapons characters use, Star Wars could very much fill that role. While many characters would use a light saber, there are many variations of that weapon, such as the staff and dual blades, as well as different fighting styles, from Yoda’s highly acrobatic style to Count Dooku fighting more like a fencer.
Whatever direction they decided to take, I think now would be a great time to get a Star Wars fighting game into the pipeline.
Naruto
After the success of Dragon Ball FighterZ, many anime fans were hoping Naruto would get a similar treatment. Make no mistake that Naruto isn’t exactly a stranger to fighting games, but most of them are arena brawlers, and the ones that aren’t, while they’re fun games in their own right, they never quite had the polish of a fighter like Street Fighter or Dragon Ball FighterZ.
Naruto is a franchise that certainly deserves it, and a tag fighter would seem like an obvious choice given that the series often featured characters working together in teams of 3. Tag fighters are getting a bit crowded these days, however but Naruto could also easily work in the vein of a game like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue, or even Granblue Fantasy Vs.
After the massive Success of DBFZ, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bamco put someone like Dimps on a proper Naruto fighting game while Arc Systems is busy with Tokon, and I’m sure it’d be more than welcome by fans of the genre.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic, as a franchise, is currently riding a high it hasn’t seen since the 90s. Not only has it had 3 solid movies and 2 pretty good TV series in the past decade, but the majority of its games since Sonic Mania have been well received, with both Sonic Racing Crossworlds and Sonic X Shadow Generations getting strong praise from us at GSC.
Given that Sega is stepping back into the fighting game space with the much-anticipated Virtua Fighter, it might not be a bad idea to capitalize on Sonic’s current hot streak with a fighting game. Sonic has had 2 fighting games in the past, with Sonic the Fighters, which played like a watered-down Virtua Fighter. There was also Sonic Battle, which, while it was actually a good game, was only released on the GBA.
Sonic could be a very good 1v1 or 2v2 fighter, and I think either Skullgirls or the severely underrated Them’s Fightin Herds could be a good point of reference for how a Sonic fighting game could play. After all, many of the characters in Sonic are both highly acrobatic and can move at hypersonic speeds, and the quick pace and movements of those games could definitely work wonders. It could be a great title for Future Club, the current devs of Skullgirls, to work on.
The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls was one of the defining cartoon series of the late 90s- early 2000s. It was a surprisingly good superhero show that did a few things that set it apart from other cartoons, one being how violent the show actually was. Despite being a kids’ show, it wasn’t uncommon for characters to have blood beaten out of them, their brains literally smashed open, or even straight up impaled, among other things.
The Powerpuff Girls has maintained a good deal of popularity, and while it had a less well-received reboot, there’s currently a second reboot in development with the series’ original creator at the helm. Perhaps a fighting game that captures the series’ high octane action, which often resembles something like a more cartoonish Dragon Ball Z, would be something to explore to help promote the show, much like Invincible is currently doing.
Something fast-paced like Marvel vs Capcom would probably be a fitting style for a Powerpuff Girls game. Perhaps nWay, which developed the Power Rangers fighting game, isn’t doing anything; they can pitch it to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network.
One Piece
Much like Naruto, a One Piece fighting game has been highly requested by a lot of gamers after the success of Dragon Ball FighterZ. Much like Naruto, One Piece has had fighting games, most notably a series of Power Stone-style fighters back on the GameCube, which were pretty fun. However, after they made a pretty good RPG a couple of years ago, perhaps it’s time to put in work on the fighting game that a lot of fans have been asking for.
One Piece is a series where the characters often have crazy amounts of variance between their fighting styles. I think that this would suit it to be handed over to the devs at Iron Galaxy. Iron Galaxy is known for its work on seasons 2 and 3 of Killer Instinct. Killer Instinct in later seasons felt like an anagram of fighters, as some characters felt like they belonged in Street Fighter, while others felt like something out of Guilty Gear or Mortal Kombat.
With their ability to create something like that, as well as coming up with some of the most unique characters ever seen in a fighter, such as fan favorite Hisako and Aganos( my personal favorite fighting game character of all time) I think Iron Galaxy could be the right studio to bring the wild power sets of One Piece to life in a fighting game.
MonsterVerse
I can’t imagine the hype that would surround a traditional fighting game based around legendary giant monsters fighting were announced. Calling Godzilla and King Kong icons at this point is an understatement, and the concept of being able to duke it out along with other monsters in the current monsterverse, such as King Ghidorah and Rodan, sounds like it’d be a hell of a good time.
Much like One Piece, Godzilla did have a few arena fighters back in the PS2 era, but they only ranged from decent to mediocre at best and were compared unfavourably to War Of The Monsters on the PS2.
Although I haven’t really gotten into their games as a competitor, I think working on a project like this could be the shot in the arm that NetherRealm Studios needs. Known for the Mortal Kombat and Injustice franchises, NRS has a reputation for having probably the best cinematic production values in a fighting game, and they also often incorporate the environment into their fighters, which would work well in a game where characters would likely be smashing each other into skyscrapers.
Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2 are often called NRS’s best titles, but the Mortal Kombat games that followed, Mortal Kombat 11 and MK1 left more to be desired by fans of the games. Perhaps, if they’re able to break away from Warner Bros somehow and if they’re creatively drained with Mortal Kombat at the moment, they could recreate the magic they did with the former 2 games with a MonsterVerse-themed fighter.
Any others?
Of course, there are plenty of popular IPS that could work as a good fighter. From anime like My Hero and Jujutsu Kaisen, cartoons like Steven Universe or Adventure Time, or even other game series like God of War and Mega Man. Although it’s good not to put out too many, so the market doesn’t get flooded, if the 3 upcoming do well, there are quite a few ideas to explore.
What IPs would you like to see made into a fighting game? Come and tell us in the Gamer Social Club Discord, as well as chat about your favourite games, join in on community game nights, take part in giveawats, and more!
