Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Marvel’s latest successful game Marvel Rivals is just about to start its second season and the character debuting with the new content is the White Queen herself, Emma Frost.

Originally an antagonist to the X-Men, Emma Frost has been a pivotal character to the X-Men franchise for the last 20 years so her joining Marvel Rivals to represent the group makes sense, but did you know that she was originally planned for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as well?

Emma Frost, also known as the White Queen, was originally part of a group called the Hellfire Club which are antagonists in the X-Men series, but her profile as a character would rise massively during the early 2000s when Grant Morrison implemented her in his run on New X-Men.

She established a relationship with iconic X-Men leader Cyclops early on and ever since, she’s been one of the most central characters to the X-Men as a whole. This big increase in popularity and screen presence actually lined up pretty perfectly with Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and she was a very present character in Marvel’s general roster at the time.

Back in 2010, there was a panel at that summer’s Comic-Con where Marvel vs. Capcom 3 producer Ryota Niitsuma talked on stage about lots of different details regarding Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The panel was streamed, but this was back on uStream which has not existed for a very long time and I have unfortunately not been able to find any archive of this stream, but there are written accounts which talk about details from the panel such as our article linked above.

This was before the full roster for the game was known, so obviously he remained tight-lipped on some subjects, but he was surprisingly candid about characters that they had wanted to implement or had begun work on but unfortunately had to remove from the game.

One of the characters mentioned here was Emma Frost, and while most sources (including our own EventHubs article from the time) doesn’t elaborate on her dismissal from the game, there is a source from a few years ago which does.

Reddit user slib wrote a big dissertation on the now-defunct /r/Kappa subreddit relaying more details from the panel since he was there in person to witness it way back in 2010.

Now, obviously this information is anecdotal and comes from this user’s memory, though there are several details in this account which have also been corroborated by Niitsuma himself throughout the years, so while you can take it with a grain of salt there’s likely a decent amount of truth to it.

According to slib, Ryota Niitsuma explicitly referred to Emma Frost as “one of his favorite characters to create” but after starting development on her, Marvel approached the team with a different idea which ended up taking precedence.

The reddit user speculates that this idea was likely Phoenix, who had not been revealed at the time. This adds up with comments pre-release where Seth Killian would talk about a specific character concept he was looking forward for people to see, which ended up being Phoenix.

It’s kind of interesting how in the comics, Emma Frost romanced Cyclops, the husband of the then-presumed deceased Phoenix, and then for Phoenix to in turn steal Emma’s spot in Marvel vs. Capcom 3… almost makes it feel like some sort of planned revenge.

While there’s no news on any new Marvel vs. Capcom projects in the future, Emma Frost has stayed a significant presence in the X-Men books even today, as you can likely tell from her early inclusion for Marvel Rivals, so if we ever were to see the return of the franchise, she might still get her shot.

Until then, we hope that Mr. Niitsuma will at least try out Emma Frost in Marvel Rivals instead of dwelling on what could have been.

Capcom Cup 11 came to its riveting conclusion back in early March. As such, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t received any news about the exact release timing of Elena and the Season 3 update. We have to imagine that Capcom will be providing information very soon considering that Evo Japan 2025, the first premier event of the Capcom Pro Tour 2025, is scheduled to kick things off for Season 3 in early May.

Rooflemonger recently released a video talking about the sort of buffs that he’d like to see implemented for some of the less competitive characters in Street Fighter 6. Though Street Fighter 6 feels fairly well balanced in its current form, some of the lower tiers could clearly use a little help.

The first character that Rooflemonger talks about is E. Honda. Ironically, E. Honda actually had his Sumo Headbutt special nerfed from Season 1 despite already being considered a low tier since it was giving certain players difficulties.

Regardless, Rooflemonger mentions how he’d like E. Honda to have greater focus on fundamentals, like in Street Fighter 5. One way of doing this is to allow E. Honda to cancel into his Hundred Hand Slap special (after activating Sumo Spirit) from his forward and heavy kick command normal.

Jamie’s problem is that his main mechanic, the drink system, actually holds him back. Perhaps the developers could let him keep his drinks between rounds, but this will require adjustments to the drink cap as well as the buffs that Jamie receives as he utilizes the drink system, similar to how Shun Di works in Virtua Fighter 5.

Throughout the video, Rooflemonger also goes over what type of changes could be good for Lily, Marisa, and Manon. Indeed, these tend to be the characters with the poorest performances throughout Season 2 of Street Fighter 6.

Check it all out below:

Nintendo finally revealed details about the Switch 2 during their latest Nintendo Direct presentation. Unfortunately, a lot of the hype for the console and its revealed games thus far was mostly overshadowed about news of what sort of prices we should expect, which was information that got conveniently left out of the livestream itself.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is set to launch for $449.99 while games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza will be available for $79.99. Things only seem to be getting worse as it was recently announced that Nintendo would be delaying their preorder date (originally set for April 9, 2025) due to the potential impact of tariffs recently announced by the United States. This suggests that the prices could end up rising even more than what was originally reported.

At long last, the President of Nintendo of America Doug Bowser recently commented on the price controversy relating to Switch 2 games in a discussion with the Washington Post (via Wario64).

“We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.” — Doug Bowser

“What you see right there is variable pricing,” stated Bowser. “We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.”

Of course, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will go down in history as the Switch’s best selling game. To date, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold over 67.35 million units worldwide. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have sold 47.44 million and 35.88 million respectively.

Needless to say, Nintendo’s decision to push the next entry in the Mario Kart lineup, Mario Kart World, as a launch title for the Switch 2 makes a lot of sense.

With the success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, it’s reasonable to assume that Mario Kart World is the type of game that feature a lot of these “repeatable gameplay experiences” that Bowser alluded to. We can also assume that Nintendo has put a lot of resources into making Mario Kart World as good as it can be.

“So I think you can anticipate that there will be variable pricing, and we haven’t set a benchmark.” — Doug Bowser

However, these sort of costs have gamers worried that if consumers buy games at these prices, it will lead to more developers releasing games at these sort of retail prices. From this, Bowser then went on to talk about how other games might end up being priced differently depending on the circumstances.

“Those are all factors, and there’s many more that go into consideration of what is the right price point for the game,” continued Bowser. “So I think you can anticipate that there will be variable pricing, and we haven’t set a benchmark.”

This suggests that there could be a number of games that are set at the prices that consumers tend to be more comfortable with. Of course, it also means that there will probably be more games also priced at $79.99.

Should another Super Smash Bros. entry ever be released for the Switch 2 (which is a very likely possibility), it will probably also be priced similarly to Mario Kart World due to how insanely successful the last entry was on the Switch.

On the other hand, Street Fighter 6 was also revealed to be coming to the Switch 2. Players will be able to pick that game up (along with the Year 1 and Year 2 Character Passes) for $59.99 as a launch title for the Switch 2.

So overall, it seems like the developers will have direct control over how released games are priced when they become available. We’ll just have to see how things work out from here to see just how often that dreaded $79.99 price tag shows up.

Mortal Kombat 1 finds itself in a very interesting position currently because no one really knows what (if anything) is coming next to the game.

NetherRealm Studios announced today that Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns is set to undergo server maintenance tomorrow, April 9.

According to the official post, the maintenance period is scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. PT / 9 a.m. ET.

It’s unknown how long this server downtime will last, but you should probably assume it’ll be for a few hours at least.

During this time, all online functionality shall remain unavailable including matchmaking, the in-game store, rewards and more.

NetherRealm also doesn’t state what the purpose of the maintenance is, however, it could just be for general maintenance, a hotfix update or adding new content to the store.

We already know Mortal Kombat 2 movie skins are on the way to MK1, though, no release date has been given for those yet.

Ed Boon also recently teased Mortal Kombat 3 skins for Sonya and Nightwolf (who isn’t even currently in the game), but it could have been simply for an April Fool’s Day joke.

That could point to the existence of a Kombat Pack 3 if true, however.

There’s currently no more announced playable characters coming to the game after the T-1000 and Madam Bo, who are now available.

Stay tuned to EventHubs for more updates as they become available.

Mortal Kombat 1 will be offline for maintenance on April 9 starting at 8am CT/6am PT. Stay tuned here for updates. #MK1

— Mortal Kombat 1 (@MortalKombat) April 8, 2025

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.

It hasn’t been all that long since Venom hit the stage in Guilty Gear Strive Season 4, but there’s already a new update to the game.

Arc System Works just recently dropped the Version 1.45 patch notes for Guilty Gear that should now be available.

This is unfortunately not a balance or big feature update that fans had been hoping for judging by the comments on social media.

Nor does it include the matchmaking or Training Mode improvements either.

Instead, it seems they’re focusing on just fixing a few of Venom’s issues for now.

We’ll likely be waiting until potentially Unika’s release later this Spring to receive a more substantial update for Strive.

You can check out the full patch notes below or on the Guilty Gear website.

An update to Version 1.45 will be released after maintenance on April 8 for the PlayStation®4/PlayStation®5/Steam/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/Windows versions of Guilty Gear -Strive- with fixes for various issues.

Battle Related

Updated the Battle version from Ver.4.03 to Ver.4.04.

All changes are fixes for issues. Please refer to the list below.

Fixed an issue when the opponent is transformed into a ball using Venom’s Tryambaka, a massive amount of damage occurs if certain conditions are met.

Fixed an issue when a ball from Venom’s Ball Set is on the screen and Navaratna Runout absorbs it, a hitbox is activated on the ball during the time freeze.

Just yesterday, we reported on the tier list released for Street Fighter 6 by the 15-year-old Ryu prodigy 2Game|Blaz, a player that took second place at Capcom Cup 11 primarily using Ryu.

Another player that attended Capcom Cup 11, Broski, recently released his tier list for Street Fighter 6 Season 2. Due to his qualification at Capcom Cup 11, Broski is known to be the best performing A.K.I. user of the Capcom Pro Tour 2024 tournament circuit.

Although Broski does believe that certain characters are clearly better than others, he asserts at the beginning of the video that he believes every character in Street Fighter 6 is viable. Overall, Broski dislikes the idea of tier lists, but he does have some unique and interesting placements to talk about.

According to Broski, the best characters in the game right now are Akuma, M. Bison, Guile, Ken, Cammy, JP, Ed, and Rashid. These are typically the type of characters that are performing well at major tournaments.

Broski also has Marisa as the worst overall character in the C tier group. Characters like Dhalsim, Jamie, and Lily are only slightly better as they occupy B tier positions.

Although we didn’t see much of Mai Shiranui at Capcom Cup 11, players are beginning to see her potential in Street Fighter 6. As such, Broski has positioned her at the top of S tier along with Ryu, Juri, Zangief, A.K.I., Dee Jay, and Terry.

Check it all out below:

Click images for larger versions

Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo was recently revealed to be a playable character in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. It feels bizarre to have a real life person being playable in a fighting game with fictional characters, but at least this idea was teased a few months back to give fighting game fans time to mentally prepare for this announcement.

Just a week after Ronaldo was revealed as a fighter in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, SNK then proceeded to unveil that Salvatore Ganacci was also playable, seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that SNK has already announced plans to add Street Fighter 6’s Ken and Chun-Li to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves as DLC later down the road, the additions of these real life characters as guests promotes a completely different feeling.

Needless to say, Jmcrofts recently released a video talking about the addition of these sort of guest characters. Essentially, the video poses the question “Are fighting game guest characters getting out of control?”

It can easily be argued that Cristiano Ronaldo and Salvatore Ganacci are taking up slots that could’ve been devoted to characters that are actually part of the Fatal Fury games. To players that aren’t necessarily familiar with these two famous individuals, they do ultimately feel like a waste.

Of course, we already have some people that are unhappy with other guest appearances like how Terry Bogard and Mai Shiarnui showed up in Street Fighter 6’s Season 2 lineup. Even outside of these whacky additions, there are those that have grown tired of the guest character formula for fighting games.

It’s an interesting topic that seems to be becoming more relevant as many fighting game series grow older. On the other hand, it’s also becoming more difficult to predict who joins in any given fighting game, which can lead to funny reactions.

Check it all out below:

Back in the summer time of last year, the new Street Fighter film that is still in the works lost its original directors, twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, although not much reason was given at the time for their departure.

Hot off the heels of the very successful Talk To Me, which became A24’s highest grossing horror film, they were brought on to direct the latest Street Fighter film, and now one of the twins has given a reason why they dropped out of the project in 2024.

“The IP stuff I would usually stay away from, not because I don’t want to do it but because I don’t want to **** it up… there’s things with such big, in-built audiences, I’d hate to let a whole bunch of people down, like ‘what the **** was that,’ ‘I’m so sorry.’,” Danny Philipou told Collider.

“That’s my nightmare, pissing off all these people, these dedicated fan members. And if we’re getting a remake, obviously the original is amazing, [prompting fears around being] talented enough,” Danny Philipou noted.

“We were developing big IP, it wasn’t horror, but Street Fighter, and we were actually really excited for that. Developing that was a lot of fun, but just finding the time for it, it just didn’t line up properly for us, and so we decided to focus on the original stuff,” he added.

Calling the original 1994 Street Fighter film ‘amazing’ seems like a stretch, but it has definitely become a cult classic for it’s camp and terrible writing, plus it still makes Capcom quite a bit of money.

Capcom continues to recognizes the original film to this very day, as the included a reference to it with M. Bison’s release in Street Fighter 6.

The new film is likely experiencing a delay, but already has a new director from The Eric Andre Show, Kitao Sakurai. Sakurai served as the director and executive producer of the The Eric Andre Show for more than a decade.

At least on PC

It’s been one week already since Bandai Namco released the massive Season 2 update for Tekken 8, and people can’t stop talking about it (for better or worse).

The game-overhauling patch has received a ton of complaints and criticisms to the point that Tekken’s Steam reviews have fallen to “Overwhelmingly Negative.”

And with that level of detractors for the game right now, you’d almost think that matchmaking would be a ghost town or at least decreased since the update.

But is that actually the case?

This got us curious about Tekken 8’s numbers, so we headed on over to Steam Charts to see how the game is performing on PC currently.

What we found doesn’t quite match the picture that players have been painting the past week.

Instead, we saw the highest peak for the game in over a year and overall higher numbers coming from the end of Season 1.

Upon the launch of Tekken 8 Season 2, the game reached a peak concurrent userbase of 16,091, which hasn’t been seen for the game since March last year.

So unsurprisingly, more than double the usual amount of players hopped online to try things out.

This is about what you’d expect out of a big season update for a major fighting game, but what about what happened after?

Well, Tekken was on average peaking in the 6,000s in the weeks leading up to the patch.

Numbers obviously have gone down since the highest point last week, however, it’s still generally beating out where the game was before.

Tekken almost crested 10,000 on April 5 and has generally been around or above those active users in the days prior.

Today is a little bit lower with a 24-hour peak of 7,464, but that still beats out the average set at the end of Season 1.

So more people (at least on PC) are playing Tekken 8 Season 2 than the last few months of the game.

That’s still not enough to come close to matching Street Fighter 6, which has an impressive 32,487 concurrent players over the past day, but it’s still more than enough to make Tekken 8 the second most popular fighting game on the platform currently unless you want to count Brawlhalla up there too.

It’ll be interesting to see if Tekken’s numbers remain fairly consistent in the weeks to come or if things will continue to drop lower than where they were prior.

Bandai Namco has acknowledged the player responses to Season 2 with a few messages, so there may be more coming to re-shake up the game some more too.

“Fighters, we are aware of the current community feedback regarding #TEKKEN8 Season 2. We are carefully reviewing the balance of the game; expect more information about these changes soon,” reads the post from the official Tekken account in part.

Overall, Tekken 8 is not in any danger of “dying” any time soon even with these unpopular changes, but we’ll have to wait and see just how many people stick around to play the game in its current state.