As development of Next Virtua Fighter Project has been developing at decent pace at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios, producer Riichiro Yamada has revealed the studio’s ambitions with the upcoming fighting game. In an interview with Automaton Media, Yamada spoke about the title, its features, and most interestingly, how the studio didn’t want it to “just sit within the ‘fighting game’ mold.”
Rather, Yamada noted that the studio’s goals with Next Virtua Fighter Project – being its first attempt at the franchise – involves aiming for a Game of the Year nomination when the title eventually comes out. This also means that the studio wants as many players as possible to try it out, and to do so, the game also has to be easy to pick up and play.
“Of course, our goal is to make a game worthy of being nominated for Game of the Year,” said Yamada. “Like the very first Virtua Fighter, we want a title that doesn’t just sit within the ‘fighting game’ mold.”
“The fighting game genre tends to be seen as a special, niche category. But Virtua Fighter actually isn’t like that; it’s easy for anyone to pick up and play, and I think that’s one of its strengths.”
This also means that the studio is taking an almost microscopic approach to its development, ensuring that it is a game that just about anyone can enjoy.
“If a game isn’t something anyone can enjoy, it won’t reach the level of recognition needed to even be considered for GOTY,” he explained. “This is the meaning behind our target of ‘making New Virtua Fighter a GOTY-worthy game.’”
As part of this attempt to ensure that Next Virtua Fighter Project ends up being easy to pick up and play, Yamada also discussed the potential of adding new mechanics, and even removing others. Removing systems comes from his belief that piling on more and more mechanics on top of the game will make it overly complex.
“But if we just keep piling more on top, we’ll end up with a game that’s overly complex,” he explained. “So, with New Virtua Fighter, we need to experiment by cutting away some of the things we’ve built up, as well as bringing in new features.”
“To make these decisions, we’ll keep testing various ideas, but I trust Takeda (VF series battle director Yosuke Takeda) to safeguard the truly important parts (laughs). As someone who’s been making VF forever, he understands this best. Similarly, our programmers and motion designers also know very well what parts of a fighting game absolutely must not be touched. It’s about preserving those core elements while incorporating new ideas.”
Among the new features that will be making their debut with Next Virtua Fighter Project is an entirely new game mode dubbed Uprising mode. While not too many details about this mode have been revealed, Yamada has described it as offering “dynamic momentum-shifting opportunities.” For more details on the core gameplay mechanics powering the upcoming fighting game, check out our coverage of the title’s appearance at Tokyo Game Show 2025.
Next Virtua Fighter Project is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It doesn’t however, have a release date yet.