With vague ambiguities leading the way, Japanese company Sega has pushed out some new information regarding the classic Virtua Fighter franchise appearing to embrace esports in the near future.
With it is theorized to be a new Virtua Fighter title that should have the curtain pulled back relatively soon.
It’s all rather vague and cryptic at the moment, so you can likely throw a dart at a board and draw your own conclusions that would be just as accurate as everyone else’s that is currently reporting on the story, but for the moment it’s wise to watch the trailer yourself.
The trailer arrived on YoutTube three hours ago and seems to infer the return of the famous franchise to esports. Any promises beyond that are speculation at the moment, but it’s a heck of a bang to start off the Tokyo Game Show with during a time where game announcements have been mired with technical errors and subpar reveals.
The latest Virtua Fighter release was Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown which Wikipedia has noted as a 2012 release, making the series ripe for a new title; similarly, it seems to hold a promise that a new title will be revealed for the esport scene as it’s implausible that competitors would match up in a title that is nearing a decade in age.
Further, the brief snippets that are shown within the trailer do not match gameplay found within Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.
It is possible, however, that the scenes are CG-crafted to lend hype to the announcement, and that Sega (however odd it may seem) actually has no plans for the next iteration of the long-beloved fighter noted for being one of the first titles that took advantage of a 3D space.
Thus, a reboot into the franchise seems likely and the time seems ideal to match the announcement of an upcoming esport league coming from Sega in a time where esports are becoming massively more popular thanks to the pandemic wreaking havoc on the standard sports scene.
On the official website of Sega, a Japanese announcement states that Virtua Fighter will be restarted as a title that focuses on esports to ‘commemorate the 60th anniversary’ of Sega. On the back of the success of the competitive puzzler (that’s a thing) Puyo Puyo Champions, and with the scene being far more accepting of every competition possible at the moment, a new chapter of Virtua Fighter seems all but inevitable.
Further, Sega’s success in porting Persona 4 to the PC along with rumors of Persona 5, along with massive success revolving around Phantasy Star Online 2 finally making it’s way westward, shows that the developers of Sega are currently working fast and furious on a mass number of titles. Here’s hoping a new Virtua Fighter arrives sooner rather than later.
