Information about Sega’s new Virtua Fighter title has been leaking out for a while now. The company first revealed a teaser trailer for the game at Tokyo Game Show last month, but didn’t provide much information about what it was, or if it was even a game at all. At the time, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi described described it as “a project commemorating the 60th year anniversary of [Sega]” that would begin in Japan and would be a “restart” focused on eSports and competitive play.”
Then official art appeared on PSN. Now, however, we might finally get some answers about what the future of Virtua Fighter entails. Swega has officially announced the Virtua Fighter x eSports Project Official Announcement livestream on May 27th at 8:00 PM JST (4 AM PST). The livestream will take place on Sega’s new Virtua Fighter YouTube channel, which currently shows teaser for the livestream. Sega also launched a teaser website counting down to the livesteam.
Previous leaks referred to the game as Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, though it’s simply known as Virtua Fighter eSports in Japan. The last game in the series was Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, which released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2012. It’s reasonable to assume that Ultimate Showdown might be an updated version of that game.
Whatever it is, it would be good to have Virtua Fighter back, even if it is just an alternate version of Final Showdown. The brainchild of legendary OutRun and Shenmue designer Yu Suzuki, who recently suggested he might return to the series, Virtua Fighter was the first 3D fighting game. The series is renowned for its incredible technical depth and excellent design. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is widely considered one of the greatest fighting games ever made.