A few weeks ago at The Game Awards, SEGA surprised gamers by announcing that a new game in the Virtua Fighter franchise is being developed at RGG Studio (Yakuza, Like a Dragon). While no actual title or info has been revealed, it’s enough to excite community members.

While there’s still not a lot of info about the in-development new game in the franchise, SEGA seems to be gearing up for it big-time in 2025. In a recent developer feature by Japanese gaming rag 4Gamer, many Japanese game developers were asked about their plans for 2025. One of the people asked is Moriji Aoki, Project Producer of Virtua Fighter.

When asked what his ambitions are for 2025. Aoki said (translated by DeepL), “We will use the 30th anniversary of “VF” as an opportunity to further accelerate the development of the Virtua Fighter franchise with the release of the Steam version of “Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.” We will start with our participation in “Frosty Faustings XVII 2025”, one of the largest fighting game community events in the U.S. We will also participate in “EVO Japan 2025” while holding a VF global tournament “VF Open Championship”. In addition, through the opening of the official VF Discord, we will connect with Virtua fans around the world and re-create the Virtua Fighter community!”

While nothing has been confirmed, Aoki’s statement suggests we’ll see (and possibly be playing) the new Virtua Fighter game in 2025. At the very least, we should see SEGA and RGG engage with the community about the franchise, which hasn’t happened in a while.

For reference, the latest mainline entry in the franchise is Virtua Fighter 5, originally released in arcades and the PS3 in 2007. Since then, we’ve gotten iterations of it with Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (2010), and Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown (2021). In January 2025, SEGA will Virta Fighter 5 REVO on PC, though we hope that’s not the only Virtua Fighter release for the entire year.

There’s no title yet, though I wouldn’t be surprised if SEGA names it Virtua Fighter 6. Then again, it could start fresh and rename it something else entirely.

Posted: Jan 01, 2025 3:04 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://mp1st.com/news/sega-aims-to-re-create-virtua-fighter-community-in-2025