Sega has announced that a Virtua Fighter Direct is scheduled for Sunday, May 11th, and stated it will “reveal new developments in the Virtua Fighter series.” This news was released via Sega’s official X/Twitter account, with the event going live at 10 AM EDT, and coincides with the final day of Evo Japan.
While it is not stated what will be showcased during this event, there is a possibility we will get more information, or another fresh look, at the awaited Virtua Fighter 6, being developed by Like A Dragon developer RGG Studio. An initial announcement trailer was made for this title, and quickly became hyped due to the trailer’s focus on making the fight between its two combatants look highly cinematic, with blocks looking to take a count of the actual attack in their animations, and movement feeling complementary to each other. It was noted that this video was a proof of concept rather than actual gameplay, so we see it again, this element could change completely.
It is also possible that Virtua Fighter 6 might not make an appearance at all. RGG Studio had previously released Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. on PC in January of this year. The last release of Virtua Fighter 5 was on PlayStation 4 in 2021. Since this is an updated version of the game, the big announcement in this could be that R.E.V.O. will make an appearance on modern consoles such as the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series. With the Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, and fighting games like Street Fighter 6 set to appear on it, we could also see the series announced for the platform.
Virtua Fighter holds the distinction of being the first 3D fighting game, released in 1993. This predates the Tekken series, which would premiere in 1994, as well as the Dead or Alive franchise, which premiered in 1996. Creator Yu Suzuki had planned a spin-off of the series for the Sega Saturn that would have followed Series regular Akira Yuki. This title eventually changed the protagonist to Ryo Hazuki, and was released for the Sega Dreamcast as Shenmue, where the Virtua Fighter cast were featured as capsule toys.
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