Last weekend, thousands of fighting game fans competed in Evo 2025. The event features tournaments for several popular fighting games, where anyone can join and prove they’re the best. While Evo is built for high level gameplay, developers see a perfect opportunity to announce upcoming releases for the genre. With several publishers involved, Evo 2025 delivered reveals for many of your favourite fighting games.
Street Fighter 6 dropped a teaser for electric super spy C. Viper, a fan favourite who’s been absent since 2008’s Street Fighter IV. The trailer shows off her new design through story mode, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer for gameplay. Capcom also revealed new swimsuit outfits for eight fighters, which are now available for purchase.
Guilty Gear -Strive- unveiled gameplay for the final character of Season 4, Cyberpunk Edgerunners’ own Lucy. Guilty Gear’s first crossover, Lucy brings mechanics from Cyberpunk 2077 such as her electric Monowires and even quickhacking. She appears to be quite a technical character, which is fitting for the sci-fi franchise. Arc System Works also teased “GGST2.0” for 2026, suggesting ongoing plans to support and possibly revamp Guilty Gear -Strive.
Tekken 8 is bringing back everyone’s favourite steel clad wrestler, Armor King. A dark mirror to King, Armor King brings an aggressive play style, with his trailer featuring some devilishly brutal grabs & throws. Tekken 8 also showed off a sneak peak at a brand new fighter, Madagascar’s Miary Zo. Making a brief appearance at the end of Armor King’s trailer, Miary Zo will be the final challenger joining Tekken 8’s 2nd season.
Outside of DLCs, Evo also revealed some unreleased fighting games. Nineteen years since the last mainline release, the long dormant Virtua Fighter is returning with a brand new release. Fans got a focused first look at gameplay, with no music or effects to distract from the battle between Akira & “Stella”. Tag fighter MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls also had a small presence, with a closed beta announced for next month.
Other games present at Evo also revealed upcoming characters: Street Fighter’s Ken will be joining Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Under Night In-Birth II gets an aquatic themed character in Izumi. In contrast, the flame clad Wilnas will be joining Granblue Fantasy Versus: Uprising’s roster. Finally, HunterxHunter NenxImpact adds the cat-like Neferpitou, although the game is currently banned in Australia.
With so many games, characters and costumes announced at Evo, fighting game fans are simply spoiled for choice. Its amazing to see the genre thriving after years of struggling to find footing in the modern gaming space. As the genre boasts several actively supported titles, now is as good a time as any to get into fighting games.
About the Author
Wil Bain
he/him
Wil plays every type of game (because he cannot sit still), but tends to favour frantic action and epic RPG's. Outside of gaming, you can find him at the local swimming pool, or visiting the exciting sights of suburban Melbourne.
