Fighting games have done particularly well in the past few year or so. With Capcom’s Street Fighter 6, Bandai Namco’s Tekken 8, Netherrealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat 1, and the upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves from SNK. But while the 2D fighting game space is occupied by Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear, the upcoming Fatal Fury and even returning classics like Marvel vs Capcom 2, it really seems like the 3D space is only occupied by Tekken. Well, it looks like SEGA may rectify that, as their Twitter may potentially be hinting at an upcoming sequel to their iconic Virtua Fighter series.
Now, this is a very vague tweet. It’s just the SEGA logo over and over again except one of them is spells “SE6A”. This could be a hint at any number of games or series’ in SEGA’s ever expansive library, however many people are suspecting that this hint is going towards a possible Virtua Fighter 6.
Virtua Fighter, a series that hasn’t had a new release since Virtua Fighter 5 all the way back in 2006, has been a neglected series to say the least. In fact, for the longest time the best way to play Virtua Fighter 5 at this point is not through any updated port or remaster, but instead through the in-game arcades in RGG Studios’ Judgement until Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown was released in 2021.
So to say that Virtua Fighter fans have been starving for new content is quite the understatement, to put things into context when Virtua Fighter 5 first released in arcades Mortal Kombat players were playing Mortal Kombat Armageddon. Virtua Fighter 5 is old enough to have graduated high school. It’s just a very neglected series, and its absence has allowed Tekken to reign in the area of 3D fighters. A bit of competition for that title would definitely be welcome, and while there’s no confirmation of anything yet, it’s good to have hope that it’s a distant possibility.