Summary
- Sega has released new in-engine footage of the upcoming Virtua Fighter game.
- This will be the franchise’s first entry in about 20 years.
- The game’s development will be handled by Sega’s own Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.
Sega has released new footage showcasing the proposed look and feel of its latest in-development installment in the Virtua Fighter franchise. The Virtua Fighter brand has been semi-dormant for almost twenty years, having released only remasters of its last wholly new title, Virtua Fighter 5.
Aside from Virtua Fighter 2‘s surprise commemorative physical release, the last major Virtua Fighter release was Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, which came out for PlayStation 4 and Japanese arcades in 2021 and was a remaster of a previous update. Ultimate Showdown was recently confirmed to be coming to Steam in January 2025, ahead of the new entry in the series.
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Unveiled at NVIDIA’s keynote speech at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show, the short video starts with a brief transitional scene before quickly getting into a simulated combat experience. Aside from the disclaimer across the bottom of the screen, the biggest giveaway to the staged nature of the footage is its impeccable choreography. Every move feels coordinated and timed, without any overlap or missed timing, playing out more like a sequence in a Sammo Hung film than a recorded bout in a fighting game. With other major fighting franchises having released games recently, the return of Virtua Fighter may solidify the 2020s as a banner decade for fighting games.
While the showcased clip does not feature actual gameplay, it does utilize in-engine graphics, giving fans plausible insight into what the finished game may actually look like. The video showcases a Virtua Fighter moving away from its hyper-stylized characters and polygonal origins and pushing toward a visual realism that seems to land somewhere between Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6. The trailer features the franchise’s banner character, Akira, shown in two different outfits, neither of which utilize his classic bandanna and spiky hair combo.
The game’s development will be handled by Sega’s own Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, which is helming both the new Virtua Fighter and Sega’s announced Project Century. Ryu Ga Gotoku also co-developed the Virtua Fighter 5 remaster, alongside Sega AM2, and is the team most recently responsible for the Yakuza series, starting with Yakuza 5.
Aside from earlier comments from Virtua Fighter project director Riichirou Yamada about the direction Sega is trying to take the game in, little is known about the new title other than it being a completely novel entry in the series. Obscurity aside, the company seems to be committed to revitalizing the Virtua Fighter brand as it continues to offer glimpses of the upcoming game. As Sega President and COO Shuji Utsumi put it in the brand’s VF Direct 2024 livestream, “Virtua Fighter is finally back!”
