Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

There can be tremendous hurdles that video game developers face when trying to get a new project off the ground, and the latest Virtua Fighter entry is no exception.

Speaking with Sega’s Masayoshi Yokoyama, who’s an executive and CS Research and Development No. 1 head, along with Riichirou Yamada, the new Virtua Fighter project producer, where both individuals discussed how multiple other attempts were made to revitalize the storied fighting game franchise.

Getting right into it, both Sega team members were asked why they chose this timing to announce a new Virtua Fighter game, and the whole story of how it came to be.

Yokoyama: The Virtua Fighter series development team is part of my ‘Sega CS Research and Development No. 1’ division, and recently they tried their hand at the Virtua Fighter eSports initiative. Besides that, as game development techniques and our experience develops we’ve been trying several times to make a plan for a new game in the series, but we always ended up with ‘will current day game fans accept this?’ and not being sure of the answer. There’s actually been a lot of happenings leading up to this announcement.

Yamada: Virtua Fighter is one of Sega’s top IPs historically, so a lot of people in the company held feelings of ‘we want to do something with it’. Like Yokoyama said, because of various circumstances a lot of time has passed since Virtua Fighter 5 and it’s taken us a very long time to figure out ‘what would be appropriate for today’s market’.

But like was said earlier, we have a lot of developers from the Virtua Fighter series in our studio as well as a lot of Virtua Fighter fans, too. All of them constantly wished to make a new Virtua Fighter game. Amidst all this, I was chosen to be in charge of the new title and listening to all of their passion for the series as well as their beliefs for what Virtua Fighter would need in the future and trying to make a plan that connects the series’ past with its future, we finally go the ‘GO’ sign from management, and that’s how it went down. “This will be a big project, so good luck,” they said.

Yokoyama: At Sega as a company, our CEO, our executive producer and even people who previously held such positions, they were all Virtua Fighter fans from various perspectives. Our previous executive producer, Yukio Sugino, was very arcade-focused and had a long history with arcades, so from an arcade perspective he had fondness for Virtua Fighter. Our current CEO, Haruki Satomi, has a lot of love for not just Virtua Fighter but Sega’s IPs in general and his approach is to ‘redefine the value of Sega’s IPs and show them to the world’. The approach with Sonic in recent years, including the film franchise, is part of that.

Yokoyama: And also, our executive producer, Shuji Utsumi, refers to Sega as a ‘treasure island’. His approach is ‘with the IPs Sega has, we should be able to be on the world stage’ which led to him heavily pushing the legacy project where we’re reviving IPs recently such as Golden Axe and Shinobi. So looking at all these approaches, Virtua Fighter has always been at the forefront of our minds and we’ve constantly been discussing ‘when and in what form will we be able to make a new Virtua Fighter’?

Yokoyama: Like Yamada said, there’s been a lot of people on the development side who’ve been thinking about a new Virtua Fighter game, there’ve been people who wanted a natural progression and there’ve also been people who wanted to make something completely different as a revival of the Virtua Fighter IP and neither approach ended up feeling right. From these circumstances, the project ended up being put into my hands.

Yokoyama: So when looking at a project to revive Virtua Fighter, I thought if we were just trying to make an extension of existing fighting games it would be difficult for us to compete on the world stage. Looking back at Virtua Fighter’s history, which was formed via innovation and by looking ‘slightly into the future’, and to make a new game concept that lined up with that I needed a true ‘planner’.

And Yamada here instantly came to mind when I realized that’s what I was looking for. We’d worked on planning at Sega at the same time and I felt like I knew both his history and abilities better than anyone. He had already left Sega for a while and when I called him back to us, the very first day, I asked him ‘Please make a Virtua Fighter’.

He’s worked as a planner on real-time strategy and simulation games and also established several social games that are still alive here at Sega and also has management experience as well. He’s someone who has experience with game design, producing and even the business side of things, and with all this in mind I felt like I couldn’t ask anyone but him to take this project on.

Yamada: I hadn’t heard a word of this before they hired me back, so my first thought when I heard it was ‘That’s impossible!’, *laughs*. To start with, both Yokoyama and myself are console game developers working in the consumer field.

The interviewer said this likely put a lot of pressure on Yamada-san…

Yokoyama: I’m sure it did, *laughs*. But after that talk, we had 3 months of turbulence and then the project was established.

If you want to go further, you can read how the development team behind the new Virtua Fighter is aiming to make most innovative fighting game around.

Interview from Famitsu, translated by Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor.

Capcom has revealed another one of the confirmed changes being added to Street Fighter 6 with the upcoming Mai Shiranui update on February 5. Last time, we learned that World Tour players will be given an easier way to keep track of and locate the Masters in the single player action adventure experience.

Though Christmas was about a month ago now, Capcom is also bringing gifts for those on the competitive Versus side of things with this next patch too. The company announced that players will be given the ability to watch replays directly from the match results screen in both ranked and casual matches.

According to Capcom’s tweet on the official Street Fighter Twitter page, there are a handful of new quality of life options that pertain to replays being added to the game with the Mai update.

As mentioned previously, players will be able to jump right into replays at the match end screen should they want to review what all happened in their latest bout.

Based on the screenshots included with the tweet, it appears that your three most recent replays will appear here, which might also be limited to just the matches you played in the set against your most recent opponent (though we can’t confirm this just yet).

Additionally, players will be granted the added power of being able to pause the replay and utilize the options there even during the round calls (Round 1, Fight!) and even after a KO happens. Capcom also says that the pause menu options during replays have also been reorganized to make the most used options easier to access.

Here is Capcom’s full announcement on this upcoming quality of life change:

Replay feature Improvements with the Mai Update

– You’ll be able to watch the replays from the most recent Match Result screen of a Ranked or Casual match.

– While playing a Replay, you’ll be able to pause and use the menu even during round calls or after a KO.

– The pause menu has also been reorganized to make it easier to access frequently used items such as Change Playback Round.

Click images for larger versions

Replay feature Improvements with the Mai Update

– You’ll be able to watch the replays from the most recent Match Result screen of a Ranked or Casual match.

– While playing a Replay, you’ll be able to pause and use the menu even during round calls or after a KO.

– The pause… pic.twitter.com/VaonmRCnhf

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) January 29, 2025

It was just a few days ago that we saw what has to be the dirtiest Drive Impact set up we’ve ever seen in Street Fighter 6. This strategy is one that, on paper, probably shouldn’t work well, but despite this it was used in an actual tournament match successfully.

Content creator and top player Broski, who often breaks down and analyzes the latest Street Fighter 6 tech, felt similarly in that this set up just shouldn’t work and is most likely just a gimmick. As a result, in his latest video he went into ranked matches to try the “Dirty Drive Impact” himself to test it and see how effective it actually is, and the results were surprising to say the least.

To quickly explain the Dirty Drive Impact, it essentially works like this. After a knock down in the corner, it is a very common strategy to fire off a meaty Drive Impact that hits just as the opponent is getting up.

This is done to catch the opponent off guard, and having little time to react, the goal is they either challenge with a normal and get smashed for it, or they block and get hit with a wall splat and opened up anyway. Higher level players are very aware of this strategy, so the counter play to it is to either counter Drive Impact on wake up or tap parry to try and perfect parry it so that they can turn the tides.

With the Dirty Drive Impact, though, if the player who knocked down their opponent is at at least a +38 frame advantage after sending their foe to the ground, they can essentially toss out what looks to be a meaty Drive Impact.

The trick here, though, is that the pseudo meaty doesn’t actually connect, but instead narrowly whiffs against the opponent, and with that +38 advantage the player attempting the set up is given enough of a window to counter the oncoming counter Drive Impact from the opponent waking up, or throw them for a punish counter should they tap parry.

The downside to this, though, is that should the opponent simply block and do nothing, the player going for the dirty stuff is left at a staggering -25 and at point blank range. In layman’s terms, they are left wide open to a major punish and will undoubtedly take on massive damage if the opponent is ready for it.

With all of that having been said, Broski wanted to test the Dirty Drive Impact in real matches to see if it’s just a silly gimmick or if it actually ends up being effective. He goes for attempts wherever he finds the openings and charts how many times it succeeds and how many times it fails.

We won’t spoil the results because this video is a really fun watch, so be sure to check it out below to see how Broski did.

The Mortal Kombat fanbase has been clamoring about the mysterious pink Floyd ninja that has proven to be one of the fighting game genre’s best kept secrets of the modern era. With the addition of Conan the Barbarian, Mortal Kombat 1’s latest DLC main roster character, NetherRealm Studios also added the ability to encounter and fight a pink palette swap ninja that can only be found after completing a specific set of hidden challenges, and after a week of hunting, a lot of players have managed to battle and defeat Floyd.

One of the main rewards for defeating this powerful ninja, other than simply finding him and experiencing the whole thing, is a new playable stage called “Field” that you unlock for winning. While the stage is definitely a beautiful one and seems to be a big hit with players, more footage of this new backdrop continues to surface, and the more I see it, the more I realize that it likely won’t ever be an actual tournament legal stage for Mortal Kombat 1 competitions.

This new stage is a wide open area that pits the two kombatants against each other on a grassy field. Mountains line the horizon of this awe striking landscape, and with the big sky above we see that the day is winding down as the action takes place at sunset.

Though on the surface there doesn’t appear to be anything amiss with Floyd’s field stage, it’s the grassy floor that can and will present issues for players who dare to fight on it.

The tall grass on this stage grows high enough to cover pretty much everything that sits underneath each fighter’s knees, and while you can still clearly see most of the action that’s going on, it’s the low-to-the-ground moves and projectiles that are definitely a problem.

A quick Mortal Kombat 1 clip shared by Twitter user Jaceri demonstrates this issue outright. We see main roster Cyrax roll one of her bombs at the opponent, and in that brief few seconds before it explodes, the grenade becomes completely hidden to the naked eye.

The image at the top of this article was taken with the bomb on the ground and fully in play, and if you take a look at it again, you’ll notice that you simply cannot see where it even is.

Naturally, being able to hide traps and bombs like this would present a lot of issues not only in something like ranked matches, but even moreso for legitimate tournament bouts.

pic.twitter.com/GhT25DSiaP

— Jaceri (@jaceri_) January 27, 2025

Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an awesome stage added to a fighting game that proved to be problematic for competitive play.

Capcom added the Kanzuki Family Beach stage to Street Fighter 5, and though it looked great and seemed to be positively received by fans, its rolling waves would obscure the feet and legs of characters too much for it to result in a fair match. In addition to this, traps like Ibuki’s V-Skill 2 caltrops would also almost fully disappear, and with all of that being considered the stage would go on to be barred from tournament play.

But if you still need a little convincing about Floyd’s field in Mortal Kombat 1, check out the following clip. In it, we see Ghostface engaged in his stance move that sees him crawling across the ground, and thanks to the tall grass the Horror film icon gets obstructed from view so much that only his head and his shoulders can really be seen clearly here.

new ghostface tech pic.twitter.com/bL6hjWA1GI

— Olcadan13 (@olcadan13) January 25, 2025

Outside of how difficult it is to unlock the Field stage in Mortal Kombat 1 (and how much time it would take tournament organizers to do it for every console they plan to use for their set ups), the fact that the grass can completely hide certain important aspects of a match means this stage will almost assuredly be banned from actual tournament play. Though we haven’t seen that ban come down yet, it will likely happen in the near future.

Street Fighter 6 is welcoming in its second ever outside guest character in SNK’s Mai Shiranui next week. Fatal Fury and King of Fighters’ own resident good girl is joining the fight as the third DLC character in Season 2.

With the update that brings Mai into the fold, we’ll be seeing other goodies added which might include a handful of balance changes. Capcom has confirmed, however, that an improvement to World Tour mode is scheduled to be added with said update, and it aims to make finding the game’s Masters easier for players.

Here is how Capcom describes the new change coming to Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode:

“World Tour Improvements with the Mai Update. You’ll be able to check all masters’ information from the getgo in the Master section of the Status menu.

“See HINTS for ‘when/where to find’ and ‘how to enroll’ with masters regardless of if you have met them,” Capcom wrote in an official tweet on the Street Fighter 6 Twitter page.

Players who hop into Street Fighter 6’s big action adventure single player mode after the Mai update will have more guidance on how to find the Master characters from the very beginning of their playthrough, it seems.

In Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode, all of the playable characters on the game’s Versus roster can be tracked down, and upon meeting them the player is prompted to complete tasks and missions to eventually become their pupil and learn their fighting style.

This goes for the DLC characters that were added post launch too, meaning when Mai joins the roster you will also be able to find her in World Tour and learn the ways of Shiranui Ninjustsu. This new feature will help those looking to find her easier.

Click images for larger versions

World Tour Improvements with the Mai Update

You’ll be able to check all masters’ information from the getgo in the Master section of the Status menu.

See HINTS for “when/where to find” and “how to enroll” with masters regardless of if you have met them.#SF6Tips pic.twitter.com/Sx4ynY1ahz

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) January 28, 2025

Mai Shiranui and the update that adds her to Street Fighter 6 are set for release on February 5.

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. was made available on the PC very recently. Considering that a good portion of the playerbase is made up of returning veterans, the rest of us have a lot of catching up to do.

There are 19 playable characters in Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., but it’s not entirely clear what each character can do simply by looking at them. Needless to say, trying to pick out a main in this game could be a bit of an arduous procedure.

Fortunately, Rooflemonger has released a new video that goes over all of the characters in the game. It’s a long video, but that’s only because Rooflemonger takes his time explaining what makes every character function.

The poster boy of the series, Akira Yuki, looks a lot like Ryu from the Street Fighter series. However, this is a character that specializes in guard break setups. Akira is perfect for those who want to play as aggressively as possible.

Jacky Bryant is said to be a fairly straightforward character that essentially behaves as that “Bruce Lee” type of fighter. Due to this straightforwardness, Jacky is probably a good pick for newcomers for the sake of getting a feel for the game.

Those looking for a grappler character should probably try Wolf Hawkfield. He’s known for having some of the most damaging attacks in the entire game.

Check out the video guide below:

A little while ago, Atsushi Tomita, designer for X-Men vs. Street Fighter and various other Marvel and Capcom crossover projects, released some fascinating information regarding the development of the series.

At the end of X-Men vs. Street Fighter’s arcade mode, players were tasked with defeating Apocalypse as the final boss. Just before the fight would begin, Apocalypse were fade out before reappearing as a gigantic opponent.

According to Tomita, Apocalypse was chosen as the final boss for two reasons. First off, they wanted to shock players that reached this point.

“The reason we made Apocalypse so big was partly because we wanted to shock people, but also because of memory management.” — Atsushi Tomita

Upon initially seeing him for the first time as the round was starting, players would be given a certain impression as Apocalypse, standing at around the same scale as their own characters, greeted them from the opposite side of the screen. All of this would go out the window as soon as Apocalypse grew to his actual size.

However, the main reason why this was done was actually due to a technical limitation of the time. Essentially, the developers did not have enough memory to dedicate towards making another fighter.

“The reason we made Apocalypse so big was partly because we wanted to shock people, but also because of memory management,” stated Tomita.

“The CPS2 (Capcom Play System 2 arcade system board used since Super Street Fighter 2) had a lot of memory for characters on the ROM, but we were already quite filled up with what we had, so rather than make him a regular fighting game character, we figured that we could make him a huge character who didn’t move at all in order to preserve on memory. We used that limitation to turn it into a special effect like that instead.”

During gameplay, players would have to attack Apocalypse’s head and hand while the rest of his body essentially sat in the background. Though Apocalypse did have some animations, it was mostly like fighting a still image as movement could only be observed from certain parts of his body.

Regardless, the developers would then be inspired to go even bigger in later crossover fighting games featuring Marvel and Capcom. Of course, the request to use Galactus as the final boss for Marvel vs. Capcom was initially rejected by Marvel, leading the developers to give Onslaught this role instead.

It took some time, but the dream of having Galactus taking on Marvel and Capcom’s champions was finally realized with Marvel vs. Capcom 3. As expected, Galactus in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was a lot more animated than Apocalypse ever was in previous games.

It’s interesting how such a limitation was able to shape future content within the Marvel vs. Capcom series like that. Had this limitation not been a problem, the Marvel vs. Capcom series as we know it today might’ve looked a little different.

A special thanks goes out to Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor for the translations used in this article.

During The Games Awards 2024 presentation, Sega revealed that Virtua Fighter will be returning in a big way. Of course, it will still be a good while before the game becomes available as it appears to be in the early stages of development.

Curiously, Sega has recently released a Virtua Fighter character popularity poll that allows users to vote for their favorite fighters. Though there are technically only 20 characters to vote for, fans must also select which version of each character they prefer. This results in there being 89 choices that can be selected.

In other words, you can tell Sega which style of Akira Yuki you liked the best. The options available are the Virtua Fighter, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Fighter 3, Virtua Fighter 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Fighter Kids, and Virtua Fighter Remix versions of Akira.

Meanwhile, Eileen, El Blaze and Jean Kujo have only appeared in Virtua Fighter 5 thus far. Therefore, there’s only one version to choose from with these combatants.

According to Sega, the winning fighters will have their likeness featured on original T-shirts. However, it’s more likely that Sega is actually gauging the community’s wishes for the next game in the series. The results of this poll could very well impact which characters are chosen for the roster and how they play.

This poll has been scheduled to run until February 12, 2025. Each user gets up to five votes, but may only participate once.

Eventually, the results of the poll should be revealed at some point considering that only certain characters will get original T-shirts made for them. We’ll just have to see how things unfold then.

＼Virtua Fighter Character Popularity Poll underway／

We are holding a poll to find the most popular character across all Virtua Fighter titles!
Vote for your favorites from among the 89 voting options spanning the 7 games in the series!
The most popular characters will have… pic.twitter.com/zNBLDqJAWO

— VIRTUA FIGHTER (@VF_SEGA) January 28, 2025

The Mortal Kombat community has been super focused on uncovering the 37 clues that lead to a secret battle against Floyd in Mortal Kombat 1. Those that complete this arduous task and defeat Floyd will be rewarded with an exclusive stage from the game’s first reveal trailer.

Floyd is a character that’s significantly more powerful than the rest of the roster as he’s armed with improved special moves from all of the “colored ninjas” and even has 1,337 hit points without a Kameo. Evidently, Floyd is not intended to be used by human players, but what would a Floyd mirror match look like when both CPU controllers have their difficulty settings maxed out?

Raikou recently released a video that runs for about two minutes long that showcases this. Floyd on the player 1 side is armed with the Sub-Zero Kameo while the opponent gets Scorpion as a Kameo.

As if Floyd wasn’t tanky enough, this boosts the character’s health to 1,687 and 1,637 health respectively. Normally, Floyd is such a powerful opponent that he’s fought without a Kameo, but it’s interesting that the CPU is still capable of utilizing Kameo abilities regardless.

Throughout the single round, we see a variety of unique combos being hit by Floyd on both sides. For those that wish to prepare for the actual challenge, getting a feel what sort of combos Floyd likes to go for might be invaluable considering that players will have to start over with the unlock conditions if they fail in the actual fight.

Of course, it should be noted that, while Floyd’s combos are pretty versatile, his damage output does seem a little on the low side to make up for everything else that he has going for him. Funnily enough, this combined with the huge health totals for both CPU controllers results in this match ending in a time over.

Check it all out below:

Floyd vs Floyd
Both ai on max settings pic.twitter.com/huj9B6jRAQ

— Raikou (@RaikouRosario94) January 25, 2025