Fighting Games Friday: The Kings of Fighters 2024

It’s worth discussing what the landscape will be for fighting games in 2024. Prior posts like these have solely focused on games planned for release within a certain year, but that’s difficult to do now considering how fighting games are treated these days. Developers and publishers for AAA and B-tier examples tend to release one game in the genre for a given console generation, and then provide DLC for it until shortly after the time a new generation arrives. That’s even becoming the case for lower-tier and indie games.

The current format merits a slightly different approach for these posts, but it’s still worth focusing on the two notable games in the genre definitively releasing this year. Heck, they’re even releasing this month.

Tekken 8 | PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC | January 26th

Bandai Namco was one of the key companies I was referring to above. Tekken 7 was the only game in the franchise released during the last console generation, with the development team supporting it with downloadable content through seasons in subsequent years. The same is bound to apply to Tekken 8, despite the launch package being robust enough. The game will arrive with 32 characters, most of them returning from previous games in the franchise. They’ll be joined by three new faces: Azucena, Victor, and Reina. The previews and beta tests suggest that it will be yet another great installment in a long-running fighting game franchise — one, it should be noted, that’s celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

There are still plenty of missing faces in the roster, which will undoubtedly be filled over time. A first season has already been confirmed, though there are plenty of fake lists for the character identities floating around. That’s a boon to producer Katsuhiro Harada and the Bandai Namco staff, honestly. This won’t make it easy to tell which lists are real and those that are complete nonsense. Unless characters being revealed start matching a particular list. It would be best if they took a page from Capcom’s book, and revealed the whole slate shortly before or after the game launches. Several characters introduced late in Tekken 7 should get another chance here, along with other popular faces Bandai Namco thinks players will buy the Season Passes for.

More importantly: The team should be attentively working on the netplay if the online play at launch isn’t up to par with other fighters. I’d hate to think that they’ll be satisfied with putting out online play that’s only functional at best. We’ll see.

Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes |PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC | January 27th

Any fighting game fan that won’t have their time tied up with Tekken 8, or realizes that 3D fighting games just aren’t their jam (though Tekken is the sole example these days) also has Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes as an option, a fighting game with a name you have to look up to make sure you’ve typed it correctly. (It’s not just me there.) It’s the newest title from French-Bread, following the release of the apparently-successful Melty Blood: Type Lumina. Now that support for that game has finished, they’ve returned to their other reliable franchise.

UNIBII is very much a sequel in a lower-tier fighting game franchise in terms of its budget and perception. One look at the game is enough to see this. It’s using many of the same sprites, backdrops, and likely music from the previous Under Night In-Birth titles and its updated versions, albeit with some enhancements. Most of the same characters from those games are returning here, alongside new faces like Kaguya, Tsurugi, and Kuon. Not that you’d know this if you read these Fighting Game Friday posts, because I’ve forgotten to cover it here. I’ll have to give it a special post shortly before it releases.

Meanwhile, I’d like to think that Garou/Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will release this year, but the fact that SNK has barely shown gameplay suggests an early 2025 release. I hope I’m wrong here, but the combination of its potentially robust roster and the game’s pretty looks for an SNK game suggest this could be a while. But there’s a high chance that it will be worth the wait, so it’s fine.

Several fighting games released in recent years will receive more downloadable content this year, in a shock. Ed should be revealed for Street Fighter 6 soon, with Akuma following him. (I honestly expected Ed to be revealed by now, which might show how much they care about him.) More characters will follow Elphelt in Guilty Gear Strive, alongside gameplay features like the three-on-three fighting mode. The same will apply for the recently released Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, and fellow Arc System Works-developed title DNF Duel. It’s not a busy time for fighting game releases per se, but it’s nonetheless a busy time for the fighting game genre.

I did not forget about indie fighting games here. Indie titles tend to be quickly announced and released, alongside others that don’t make their planned timeframes thanks to their fluctuating development periods and cycles. This makes them tough to include in a feature like this, but I have faith that several of them will be good.

I’m also crossing my fingers that at least a couple of cool-looking fighting games will be revealed throughout the year. By this, I mean I’d love to see a new Virtua Fighter game as part of that new Sega initiative. I’m right there with Tekken’s Harada in hoping to see this. Last year would have been the best time to reveal one, considering its 30th anniversary, but there’s never a bad time for it.