Cognition Dissemination: Ten Years Since Virtua Fighter 5, is the Series Dead?

It’s very likely, sadly.

For years, the Virtua Fighter series was a mainstay among Sega’s lineup. The first game proved how 3D fighters didn’t need to coast on the novelty of being 3D to be successful, though that helped catch the eye of onlookers. It showed how a deep gameplay system could be implemented within the confines of a 3D fighter, which distinguished it from popular 2D fighters like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and their inspirations. The first installment was a surprise hit for a Sega that was still heavily invested in the hardware manufacturing market in the mid-90s. They relied on the series for five mainline installments over the years, not including enhanced versions of those titles and various ports and spinoffs.

Given its previous importance, it’s tragic the series’ current state of uncertainty. Not all franchises and genres can weather the test of time, and the grim reaper seems to have come for VF after nearly two decades. You’re seeing this post today because it’s been a hair over ten years since the original Virtua Fighter 5 released in Japanese arcades, though the company kept the title alive throughout the previous console generation with updates Virtua Fighter 5 R and Final Showdown. As it turns out, it was the “Final Showdown” for the franchise too.

If you’ve been keeping up with Sega, you’re all too aware of how they’ve seriously cut back in the projects they’ve been working on after too many financial failures. They’ve considerably divested funding for games on dedicated platforms, and anything that wasn’t a surefire profitable hit was put on the backburner or given a very low budget. That happened to include VF when they first announced these plans in 2011, since it hasn’t been a platinum-seller in Japan for a while, and as arcades continue to lose relevance.

What’s unfortunate is how for a short time, there appeared to be a spot of hope when the company released Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown on consoles after it spent a couple of years in arcades. While it was a small scale release which arrived only through digital platforms, Sega did a good job promoting it at various fighting game tournaments and priced it well — including the character outfit DLC. Despite their efforts, it presumably didn’t do too well, given the lack of continued plans for the franchise beyond it. Mobile efforts aside, nothing much has changed since the post I made in October 2014.

It’s apparently unfortunate sales sadly weren’t surprising, despite the game’s quality and good online play. While VF has been popular among Japanese arcade dwellers for a while, it never took off as much as it should have in western territories, thanks to never living down a reputation of the games being incredibly difficult to play. That many players flocked to ostensible Ryu-clone Akira Yuki upon first playing didn’t help, who’s always been notoriously difficult to fully utilize. But that hasn’t been true for a while, especially as of FS, which made combos and technique inputs lax. In fact, Bandai Namco’s Tekken series, which had long been its main competitor, had easily surpassed it in being egregiously complex in the last few years.

It appeared there was hope for a new installment at one point, when Sega commemorated its 20th Anniversary at the end of 2013. This led to Sega preparing a large tribute website full of match videos from various installments and interviews from development staff — including creator Yu Suzuki. Since companies rarely acknowledge anniversaries for franchises they have no intention of continuing, I took this as a sign that they were preparing a new project for the current console generation. The anniversary would have been the perfect time to announce that; that it didn’t happen, however, was an ominous sign of the series’ future status.

These days, the franchise looks deader than ever, especially with the uncertainty of fighting games raking in big profits on consoles. But there’s still a chance of the genre rebounding from its current doldrums, which we’ll find out if a potentially content-rich game like Tekken 7 can sell well. If that happens, it could convince Sega to make a new installment, one that should be full of features those who play fighting games (casual and hardcore) will want to experiment with. But with Sega shifting their efforts even further to mobile in the last few years, the chances of this occurring decline on a monthly basis.

What really hurts about the lack of Virtua Fighter is how there hasn’t been a game on the market quite like it, nor will there ever be a proper successor. Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive series is the closest, to the point that it received four VF characters as guests, but they tend to feature heavily simplified combos, maneuvers, and over-the-top stage destruction — none of which would fit VF’s more grounded style. Not to mention the, um, other focus those games have, if you get my drift. There’s nothing that can adequately replace this, and that’s what stings the hardest. Sorry I have to end this on a negative note, but that’s part of what comes with modern Sega.

P.S. I also wish Virtua Fighter would have hung around a little while longer so it could have a crossover with Tekken. It’s been a long desire among 3D fighting fans who debated which franchise was better between those two, but this wasn’t helped by a pic posted on Game Watch in 2001 (!) about Virtua Fighter 4 vs. Tekken 4, which made people excited for its potential at the time. But such a fanservice game wasn’t to be, and likely won’t ever be. At least there’s a chance for Tekken to team up with DoA.