Well the numbers have come out for the next celebration of fighting games, the annual EVO event, and they don’t spell a pretty picture, with an absolutely massive dropoff in terms of entrants from last year’s EVO Vegas, about 3000 players, there are a number of factors to consider when looking at these stats.

‼️FOR ANYONE CURIOUS, 2026 VS 2025 FINAL EVO ENTRANT NUMBERS!!!

8,926 vs 12,263 Entrants,
A loss of over 3 Thousand Players (and this loss will also reflect on general attendance too)!

Almost every game has gotten cut in half this year, and people's distaste for the current… https://t.co/a3CBPss2Cu pic.twitter.com/1A1Zc8EEon

— Xeno ⏳ (@Xeno_TG) June 12, 2026

EVO Vegas 2026 registrations have dropped by roughly 45% and is reportedly the lowest entered EVO since 2014

Many attribute the low player count to high cost and the current state of the economy rather than the games themselves pic.twitter.com/mDrAzKu5eG

— Moonsault Slayer (@VolSkimmer) June 12, 2026

EVO has become quite a large spectacle, to the point where several a year are held for every region in the world. To be clear the EVO we’re primarily talking about here is the grandaddy of them all, EVO Vegas, the original North American event and the one that generally sees the most hype. Since EVO has become more of a brand than a single event, it’s much more frugal to simply wait for your region’s EVO rather than spend the money required to fly to America, Las Vegas no less, to participate in our tournament. The Vegas selection is a particular headache because the prices have become absolutely exorbitant as of late.

Evo Vegas is looking unlikely

I looked at the flight prices and there’s no world where paying that much is justifiable

I could go to 2-3 different tournaments with that much money

— Adel (@Bigbird_fgc) June 15, 2026

What I paid for three games + a custom badge three years ago https://t.co/cmGrihzWKW pic.twitter.com/ZQLxT4411u

— Stardust (@steversteverr) June 12, 2026

The second thing to consider is that a rather big international event is occurring alongside EVO in the form of the World Cup. I’m not big on soccer but apparently a lot of the world is, and several potential entrants have likely used their vacation days to fly to the World Cup, rather than EVO.

And last but certainly not least, there is a movement in the fighting game community that just does not like Saudi Arabia’s interference in the scene. I spoke earlier about how EVO has become more of a commercialized chain of events across the world rather than a single grand celebration, and the Saudis have a lot to do with that as Saudi Arabian company RTS recently purchased the EVO brand and went on to make it what it is today. I won’t go into the minutia but suffice to say there are some political differences between the fighting game community and the Saudi Arabian government.

Capcom Cup is PPV

5000 EVO Tournaments run by Saudi

Honda is fat

Everything sucks

— Brutus 🇨🇦 (@Le_Brutus) February 26, 2026

Really hoping the drop off is rough enough this year that Saudi sells EVO, here’s hoping.

Still a decent sized event, idk much about Rivals of Aether but it’s cool to see it have that much pull! pic.twitter.com/cRi7lHUvyp

— Heefnoff (@Heefnoff) June 12, 2026

It could be one or all of these things, or even none of these things. But the thing that’s for sure is that there are a lot less entrants this year at EVO Vegas than any year since 2014, and probably not a good statistic to be circulating social media for the tournament chain.