Evo Japan 2025 is now just a month away, and it’s looking to be bigger than ever — especially where one fighting game is concerned.
Now that registration has officially closed, we can see the final entrant counts for Evo Japan 2025 where Street Fighter 6 is showing up big.
According to the big tournament’s Start.gg page, there’s 8,648 unique attendees signed up to go to the event, which is up from 6,797 from 2024.
And a vast majority of people there are coming for Street Fighter specifically.
The final count shows 6,536 registered players for SF6 while Tekken 8 is at second place with 960.
Generally, we tend to see numbers decrease year over year for fighting games at Evo, but not this time around.
Street Fighter 6 had 5,089 in 2024, so they’ve managed to pull in almost 1,500 more people over last year.
This encapsulates how much of a boom Street Fighter 6 is having in Japan specifically the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Street Fighter 4, but it may be even bigger.
Street Fighter 6 has sold over 1 million copies in Japan alone, and there’s so many big events going on there that not only cater to the hardcore like Capcom Cup 11 and Street Fighter League but also more casual audiences like the Crazy Raccoon Cup series.
This high number of entrants also makes for the second-highest Evo bracket ever beat only by Street Fighter 6 at Evo Las Vegas in 2023 just after the game released, which hit a whopping 7,061 players.
1. Street Fighter 6 – 6,536
2. Tekken 8 – 960
3. Guilty Gear Strive – 676
4. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising – 474
5. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. 5on5 – 433
6. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike 5on5 – 363
7. King of Fighters 15 – 289
Considering Evo 2024 hit 5,265 players last year for SF6, this may even be larger than what Evo Vegas 2025 is going to produce for entrants, so that’s another way to show how big the game is in Japan.
As for the rest of the mainstage games, Guilty Gear Strive came in at third place with 676 entrants, which is down from 890 last year.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising capped at 474 players compared to 761 entrants in 2024 at Evo Japan.
Finally, there’s The King of Fighters 15 at 289 entrants, which is also down from 456 last year, but it is coming right after Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves releases though is not featured as a main title this time.
Evo Japan is also running two 5on5 team events for Street Fighter 3: Third Strike and Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.
The Third Strike special tournament shows 363 attendees while Virtua Fighter brought in 433, which admittedly doesn’t exactly add up for the team format.
We don’t have numbers yet for the main Evo 2025 yet, but they did release early Evo leaderboard rankings last month that also shows Street Fighter 6 on top.
So it seems we have a pretty undisputed king of fighting games this generation as far as major tournaments go, and it is a bit hard to imagine Fatal Fury or even 2XKO catching up to that now.
Evo Japan 2025 is set to take place from May 9–11 at the Tokyo Big Sight center.
Source: Event Hubs
