Fighting Games Friday: Are We Still Virtua Fighting?
Evo 2023 came and went without any kind of major showcase for Virtua Fighter, in terms of a tournament or especially an announcement. Not that I’m too surprised. The franchise once stood among the biggest fighting game brands worldwide, but was supplanted by other competing titles in the genre during the turn of the last decade. Games like Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat (2011) reminded the audience of how much they loved 2D fighting games, which left Tekken, Dead or Alive, and a then-struggling Soulcalibur as the last remaining 3D fighters around. Dead or Alive has itself plunged into a polygonal grave since (outside the beach volleyball games), while Soulcalibur could fall asleep in darkness in that same graveyard if current trends are maintained.
It was another year of disappointment in terms of a possible Virtua Fighter announcement, but perhaps its remaining fanbase shouldn’t give up on it just yet. Sega producer Seiji Aoki sat down for an interview with GamerBraves to discuss the series’ current state. The quote from the discussion that went viral involved him claiming, correctly, how “implementing rollback will be absolutely necessary when developing future titles.” It’s nice that the team is committing to having solid online play for future titles, but merely acknowledging this particular claim is overlooking something important: It’s a solid hint that Sega could be pursuing development of a future installment in the series.
It would make sense if a new title is indeed in the works, given other developments involving recent Sega releases. Aoki was chief producer for Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, the polished remaster (called such because it’s more than a mere remaster, but not quite a remake) of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown for PlayStation 4. Here, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the Sega production segment primarily responsible for the Yakuza/Like a Dragon games (I’m sticking with the latter name for this blog), rereleased the title with redone character models and backgrounds, a new opening cinematic, and new background music. The character and background modeling art style should look familiar to anyone who’s played prior titles from this team (I’m just coming off finishing Judgment), as it was all redone in their Dragon Engine.
RGG Studio has consistently undertook alternative projects to the Like a Dragon and Judgment titles over the last decade, to varying degrees of success. Games like Binary Domain and Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise did well enough, but not to the point of receiving successors. It’s tough to tell how well Ultimate Showdown performed considering it was a digital-only release, but there’s a small and hopeful part of myself praying that this means the studio could consider Virtua Fighter as the new and stable alternative to the LaD franchise.
The fighting game universe is in dire need of a new Virtua Fighter title, a 3D fighting game with a stronger focus on martial arts over super techniques and massive combos. Bandai Namco’s Tekken series is the only 3D fighter standing now, which is borrowing more and more elements from 2D fighters with every new installment while maintaining those introduced in prior entries. The return of Virtua Fighter could deliver a unique experience comparatively, even if it introduced a few elements from 2D fighters itself, as Final Showdown did with longer corner combos. It would be an acceptable-if-minor compromise for the franchise being given new life.
A brand-new title would be more than nice to have for anyone who enjoys 3D fighting games, the first new Virtua Fighter game that wouldn’t be an update to a previous version since — if you can believe it — the original Virtua Fighter 5 in 2006. (The home version released first on PlayStation 3 after the console’s launch in 2007.) But there remains a possibility that Aoki is only discussing a potential Virtua Fighter 6 in this interview. This and the aforementioned viral quote about rollback could be was to generate noticeable interest and excitement for Sega to fully green light and fund production of a new title. It’s been done before with other developers, to varying degrees of success. It worked for Yoshinori Ono with Street Fighter V, after Capcom was still hesitant about the future of fighting games, but not for something more niche like Darkstalkers. Virtua Fighter is, I’m sad to say, closer to the latter franchise in terms of popularity.
All that said, there’s also a chance that Aoki isn’t being cryptic. A new installment could be in development as we speak, one too early to be announced at Evo this year, let alone the not-E3 events that occurred between June and July. Sega may not want to be like SNK, which announced the Garou/Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves sequel well before it was in a showable state a year ago, one they only gave the final title of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves to this past weekend. There will be future opportunities to announce titles, including Tokyo Game Show (happening in a little more than a month), Evo Japan 2024 (happening next April), or the many future streams held by console hardware manufacturers.
I’ll have to keep my (figurative) fingers crossed for a while either way, but I’ll hold back the wish list for what I’d like to see in a future installment until the game is closer to fruition — should it happen.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
