30 Years of Virtua Fighter: Where To Next?

2023 marked the 30th Anniversary of Virtua Fighter.

Looking back where it all began during 1993, it was a year where fighting games were taking the next step after the successes of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat in the arcades. SEGA had their fair share of stepping into the fighting game market with games such as Holosseum, Dark Edge, and Burning Rival. SEGA utilized their 3D technology with the Model 1 Hardware and thanks to the success of Virtua Racing in 1992, they took on the biggest challenge yet: creating a 3D fighting game using 3D polygons made from scratch rather than using 2D sprites. From there, Virtua Fighter was born.

Virtua Fighter’s success paved the way with their innovation of the 3D Fighting Game genre, which inspired other games such as Tekken, Dead or Alive, SoulCalibur, Bloody Roar, Battle Arena Toshinden, and others making their mark. VF’s success also gave out various sequels and side games, with the most recent entry being Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown (aka Virtua Fighter esports) on the PS4 and Arcade in 2021, and the recent release of Virtua Fighter 3tb Online last month.

But now we ask the one important question: What’s next for Virtua Fighter?

After VF5US was released, we ended up seeing DLC for the series such as the Yakuza DLC which included costumes based on the Yakuza/Like a Dragon cast for the VF characters, along with their music, as well as the arranged VF3 soundtrack and the Type D costumes returning from VF5. A few months later, we saw another collab DLC this time with Tekken 7 where the cast received costumes and music from Tekken 7, as well as the UI based off of Season 4 of the game. Since then, SEGA has been quiet on VF5US until December where they received a new update that is based on featuring in-game advertisements. Unfortunately, the update came with issues and there’s a patch being worked on right now as of this writing.

But what about a new entry for Virtua Fighter? It’s been 17 years since VF5 has been out, especially between four games total. We’ve been asking for Virtua Fighter 6 to become a reality for years and years to come.

When SEGA announced the “New Era, New Energy” campaign at The Game Awards, they revealed the first five games that are currently in development: Crazy Taxi, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, and Shinobi. This would be dubbed as “Power The Next Level” which felt as an evolution to the 90s tagline, “Welcome To The Next Level”. 

The next day after the announcement, The Washington Post interviewed SEGA Co-COO, Shuji Utsumi, about the absence of Virtua Fighter and his response was promising. Utusmi mentioned that they are currently evaluating that right now. VF may not have tricks and special moves like Street Fighter 6 for example, but they are trying to figure out how to make the game “dramatic”, which I assume they meant by flashiness. He’s right because VF has always been a fighting game that felt more like a simulation even though it has a story that can only be found in the manuals and stuff.

If there was a new Virtua Fighter entry, there would be lots of ideas on how to retain the old school player while gaining new ones in. For starters, rollback has already been discussed as the future for VF according to an article from Seiji Aoki months ago, so that’s not an issue. More single player features would be a way to welcome newcomers in, such as a Story Mode or bringing back Quest mode from Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution and VF5. Another thing they could do is bring back the VF4 Evolution-styled training mode and tutorial, which was one of the best training modes they had in history before Street Fighter 6 came out years later.

As for the gameplay, I feel as if the characters should have more personality in terms of having special intros for the characters, which was something that almost happened during the development of VF4. Fun fact, Akira had a special recording that can happen if he’s taking on his rival Wolf in which he speaks in English by saying “Heart is more important thing, Wolf”. That line was cut during development. I’ve made a blog about having a wishlist for Virtua Fighter 6 in 2019, so if you want to read more about that, click on this link so that you can check it out. 

The future's looking bright for the Virtua Fighter series, especially since we have VF5US having continued support into 2024, VF3tb Online going strong, and also the Model 3 port of Virtua Fighter 3tb is one of the arcade games that will be played on Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth in January. But also, I feel like SEGA is trying not to have any missteps with development of the game, especially since we have Tekken 8 and many other fighting games released. It’s challenging, but I know they can do it.

And with that, Virtua Fighter Month once again comes to a close. Happy New Year to everyone and I’ll see you all in 2024 where the VF action will continue as always! Lastly, Happy 30th Anniversary, Virtua Fighter!

Until Then… Train Up, Fighters!

LOOK WHO CAME:

Virtua Kazama