Special Feature: Announcements from Evolution 2017

I’ve mentioned the sheer number of gaming-related events that occur around this time every year in previous posts, which give developers and publishers plenty of venues to announce their titles. Both E3 2017 and Anime Expo recently passed, where publishers mostly announced AAA games (though in lesser numbers than previous years) and anime-influenced games and adaptations. Evo happened this weekend, and though its main purpose is to be a competitive fighting game event, it’s also become a haven for multiple fighting game-related announcements.

The haven was further solidified this year, as it was difficult to keep up with all the news. Announcements came from companies that customarily make them like Capcom and Bandai Namco, but one even came from Arc System Works, who used to regard E3 as an event of lesser importance compared to any event in Japan. It’s clear market changes in their home country have forced their hand.

A literally huge announcement came from Capcom, who stuck to their promise of introducing characters who’ve never been playable in the Street Fighter franchise before for this season with the newest Street Fighter V character: Abigail. Anyone familiar with Capcom’s lineage may recognize him, as he was a boss member of the Mad Gear organization in Final Fight. He follows in the footsteps of Hugo, Rolento, Sodom, and Poison in making the jump to Street Fighter. But while his original incarnation was similar to Hugo in size, Abigail is far more muscular. In fact, the juxtaposition of his bulky body and small head is hilarious, but I hope that’s intentional for the developers’ sake.

In addition to Abigail, a series of outfits and stages are coming to SFV. New threads will be available for Ryu, Ken, and Guile, while Nostalgia Costumes are finally coming for Ibuki, Alex, and Juri, the first two of which were announced at Evo last year. Two new stages are also coming: The Ring of Pride (used for several matches at Evo) and Suzaku Castle (Ryu’s Street Fighter II stage). Make sure you also take a look at the two blog posts to see the sticker shock involved with these. All this content will be available on July 25th.

Several exhibition matches for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite were played, where Capcom confirmed Jedah from Darkstalkers will be playable — in his first appearance in a Marvel vs. Capcom game. While he doesn’t retain all his animations from the Darkstalkers series thanks to several of them being ill-suited for a Teen-rated game, the developers did the best job implementing them here. Also, Guardians of the Galaxy’s Gamora was shown in motion, who looks great. The new characters noticeably look better than the returning faces. Capcom didn’t have much to reveal here, but there was no need to when San Diego Comic-Con would be a more fitting place.

Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada revealed the first new character as part of Tekken 7’s DLC line, and it’s a face no one expected: SNK’s Geese Howard. The development team seems to enjoy including ostensibly unorthodox characters, following in the footsteps of Street Fighter’s Akuma and Eliza, though Geese previously appeared in some of SNK’s 3D fighters. Geese comes with all his key techniques, including the Reppu-ken, Jaei Ken, and Raging Storm. Though he has an English voice actor, he keeps the iconic (no, seriously) grunts from Japanese voice actor Kong Kuwata in battle. He’ll be available sometime this winter.

Also from Bandai Namco is the Arc System Works-developed Dragon Ball FighterZ, where the previously-confirmed Future Trunks was shown in motion for the first time. This was an expected reveal, but it’s remarkable how faithfully Arc has replicated his movements from the anime and manga. And it wouldn’t be Future Trunks if he didn’t use his sword in battle. The closed beta is still due later this summer, and signups will start on July 26th. But with news that it will have nine playable characters, two more will be revealed soon.

Arika showed off the new fighting game they announced on April Fools’ Day, with Garuda, Kairi, and Hokuto Shirase (apparently she’s an assassin who actually wants to kill Kairi!?) playable for those in attendance. Here, the game’s items and gems systems were shown for the first time, which are hopefully being implemented in a way that won’t break the game. It was also confirmed that Darun Mister and Skullomania will be included, two familiar faces for anyone who’s played the Street Fighter EX titles. It’s due for a PlayStation 4 release in 2018, but a beta session will be held at the end of this year.

Sqaure Enix provided a new trailer for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, due for a release in early 2018. This game will also have a beta session that will be held by the end of the summer, and registration has already started. Everything is getting a beta.

The biggest announcement came from Arc System Works, who revealed one of the most bizarre ideas for a fighting game I’ve ever seen: Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle. While its name would imply it’s a Blazblue tag game, this 2-on-2 fighter will also feature characters from Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth, and RWBY (which is now officially anime). The trailer shows Ragna and Jin from Blazblue, while Yu Narukami, Hyde, and Ruby Rose are shown from the respective subsequent three franchises. It’s the strangest crossover in years, and it will be a wild time when it releases on consoles in 2018.

Additionally, Jubei will finally become a playable character as DLC in Blazblue: Central Fiction. He’ll arrive sometime soon.

We’re now at the point where Evo has become too crowded for fighting game announcements, but this was bound to happen given the trend set in previous years. Given that games in the genre require serious time commitments, good luck finding the time to play all of these, especially if four of the above games release in close proximity to each other. But I hope all of them do well for each company involved in order to keep the genre healthy.

Related posts:

Fighting Games Friday — The FighterZ of E3 2017 Fighting Games Friday: The “Get it Out Before Evo” Collection Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Street Fighter V EX Plus Alpha Fighting Games Friday: An Overview of Tekken 7