Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls held a beta the past weekend, finally giving PC players a chance to play Sony's superhero tag fighter before launch (and a second opportunity for those on PS5). It was short but sweet, reaching an all-time peak of 33,233 concurrent players on Steam alone—just beating out Street Fighter 6's beta player peak back in 2023.

However, PC players' toughest foe during the beta wasn't skilled players; it was stuttering, low FPS, and a whole host of other issues. Not the best sign given Marvel Tōkon launches next week on Thursday, August 6—that's just eight days, including the weekend. During the beta, developer Arc System Works quickly apologised for these issues and shared some community-tested fixes.

All is not lost though, as Arc System Works has outlined a number of fixes in place for launch day, particularly targeting PC players. "This is exactly why we run these," the post reads, "to get the game in your hands and find what we can make better before launch."

"To our PC players, message received. The team is already hard at work on the performance you deserve, with improvements lined up for day one."

These improvements include reducing the high CPU usage that players quickly picked up on, which should boost overall performance, and fixing the stuttering that always knew to strike at the worst moment.

It's also promised to tackle unnecessary shader compilation, issues related to streaming via OBS and Discord, and various rollback netcode and cross-play issues.

I'd be surprised if the developer wasn't aware of and already working on these performance issues before the beta, which makes me more hopeful that they'll be fixed in time despite the short runway.

However, these issues have come at the worst possible time. Sony's pulled away from PC, which has left a sour taste in the mouths of many. Add to that the fact that, because Marvel Tōkon requires you to sign into PlayStation Network, its PC version is unavailable in over 100 countries—just like the fallout that surrounded Helldivers 2 in 2024. The poor first impression of Sony's Marvel tag fighter on PC is just the latest in a string of unfortunate news.

The Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls beta was open for just a short three-day window, but in that time it ran into an unfortunate number of issues. For one, the playtest for Sony's exclusive tag fighter launched the same day PlayStation Network decided it would kick the bucket, shutting all services offline for almost the entire first day in some regions.

We PC players were hit with another major issue: intense stuttering and all-round shoddy optimisation that got in the way of the otherwise slick and stylish combat no matter your specs. I think I'm one of the lucky few who actually had pretty flawless performance. One player even took to Reddit to call it "one of the worst PC ports" in a while: "This shit is inexcusable. Not buying until this gets fixed but at this point, I have no idea how you can get this cleaned up in two weeks."

Developer Arc System Works responded to all the reports, saying, "We’re aware of the gameplay and performance issues" on PC. "Our team is actively investigating these issues and working on a fix. We’ll share an update as soon as we have more information."

"Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we sincerely apologise for the impact this has had on your experience."

The team then released a six-point thread detailing community-suggested troubleshooting options that helped some players, such as running the Shader Warm-Up tool, disabling Frame Generation, and switching off various screen-recording tools.

One theory I've seen is that it's caused by the fleet of anti-cheat and PlayStation services running in the background, viewable in Task Manager. They didn't actually hog many resources but it sure was a lot of layers in an already CPU-intensive game.

Despite these issues, the Marvel Tōkon beta was still a big success on PC. Reaching an all-time peak of 33,233 concurrent players on Steam alone, it beat the records of Street Fighter 6's beta (32,787 concurrent players) in 2023, and Tekken 8's beta later that same year (15,035 concurrent players).

Marvel Tōkon releases on Thursday, August 6, giving the developers just over a week to react to feedback and resolve its PC performance issue. I don't want to call it early, but that's quite a narrow timeline.

The Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls beta has been and gone, and while I'm not usually a fighting game person, oh boy did this new superhero tag fighter have the sauce. It was only marred by the fact that PlayStation Network was down for almost the entire opening day, and its PC performance was terrible at best for many—I was one of the lucky few who didn't have any issues.

The highlight of the beta was, as you'd expect, getting to grips with the roster—16 of the 20 available in the full build. I saw a hell of a lot of Blade and Iron Man in my matches, and it turns out I'm not alone.

Fighting game content creator AlietteFaye gathered data from their high-tier Viranium-rank matches to crunch the numbers and figure out who the most popular heroes are. Overall, Blade and Magik were tied for the top position, followed up by Iron Man, Magneto, and Black Panther. Danger, bless her, was right at the bottom.

Looking specifically at players' Leader habits (that's the character in your starting, top slot), Magik wins, followed by Black Panther, Blade, Doom, and Spider-Man. Assist character slots, on the other hand, were led by Iron Man, Magneto, Blade, and Magik.

While it's hard to say whether this'll be the meta on launch day, especially after all the calls for Blade in particular to be nerfed, it's clear who the pros are siding with. Personally, I know I found Blade to be a hell of a lot of fun.

However, there are two characters I'm surprised weren't more common. My social media has been overtaken by players trying to figure out Green Goblin's best combos, and he seems very strong—and outrageously slept on—so far. On the other hand, Captain America is the starting character. Of course, this data was gathered from high-rank matches, so ease of use isn't necessarily a concern but I'd be interested in finding out how popular he was lower down the ladder.

Last week, producer Takeshi Yamanaka revealed that Phoenix Cyclops will be the first of four DLC characters coming to Marvel Tōkon in its first year. There'll be fresh competition soon enough, but it's hard to beat the rule of cool demonstrated by Blade and Magik, let's be honest.

I will openly admit that I'm not usually a fighting game person. I enjoy playing Mortal Kombat with my equally bad friends, but as soon as I'm up against someone who knows their shit, I'm fumbling over the controls. Unsurprisingly, it's not all too fun getting your ass whooped and feeling like there's little you can do to stop the pain.

But as soon as I laid eyes on Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls during Sony's 2025 State of Play, I knew I needed to at least try it—just look at the graphic design work on display. And now that the Marvel Tōkon beta has arrived, I've done just that.

Marvel Tōkon's main selling point for a fighting game flump like me—besides the cool cast and art style—is the universal controls and automated combos. Basically, every superhero shares the same combo inputs, unlike, say, Mortal Kombat, where each character has unique chains. It's all standardised.

Light, medium, and heavy attacks while standing, crouched, or aerial will always perform the same actions and automatically lead to specific chains no matter who you're playing. For example, the following chain is a few basic attacks that'll launch your enemy into an aerial combo, then knock them down to earth again: L → M → H → Down → H → M → H → Down → H.

Similarly, the right bumper is dedicated to your character's unique attacks, while the right trigger handles your skills. Pressing triangle/Y and circle/B will grab your opponent. The X/A button, along with the left trigger, are mapped to your team swapping moves.

It's intuitive, it's quick, and it's much easier to remember than Mortal Kombat's fighter-specific inputs and combos that typically also have you pressing buttons like you're entering the Konami code. I can comfortably bounce from Wolverine to Captain America without having to rewire my brain.

Marvel Tōkon's approach might sound restrictive, as if each character would feel the same given they share the same basic combos, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Mastery here comes more from how you utilise your character's specific superhero skills, and how you weave that into a four-hero tag-team format.

Captain America, for example, can throw his shield for a nice bouncing ranged attack, but time the move correctly, and you can quickly kick the shield back for a second pass. Spider-Man can websling for easy mobility and can even hang from the ceiling. Wolverine can become Berserk from certain moves to deal bonus damage. Green Goblin can launch his glider out and, just like his fate in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, it'll return shortly after.

And once you've mastered your chosen fighter, it's then time to pin down the other three in your team. Your other heroes will automatically poke their heads in for follow-up attacks after certain combos, so long as you've got charge, but you can also swap to them at any moment. It's far beyond my current abilities, but I can already foresee some pros rotating through their team, seamlessly executing combos that use each hero's unique powers.

It helps that, just like its marketing material, it's stylish as hell. You feel cool even if you're still making it up as you go along. I've long wanted to get into a fighting game, and perhaps Marvel Tōkon's lower barrier to entry through universal combat is my Trojan horse.

I'm not usually a fighting game person, but Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is my jam. Partly because it's superheroes, partly because it looks absolutely beautiful. And with the Marvel Tōkon beta dates coming up, our chance to finally play it is almost here—the previous playtest was exclusive to PS5, the greedy buggers.

Below, I'll go over when you can websling into the open beta and what you can expect to have access to. While the full release is only a month away, this beta doesn't reveal everything you'll find on launch day. For one, we're missing a few fighters.

When is the Marvel Tōkon beta?

The Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls beta runs for just three days on PC and PS5, from Friday, July 24, until Sunday, July 26, at the following times across the globe:

You'll be able to download the open beta via Steam or the Epic Games Store on PC, or on PlayStation, up to two hours before the playtest goes live.

What's in the Marvel Tōkon beta?

While the open beta features much more content than any previous closed test (which were also limited to PS5), it's still not everything we'll have access to at launch. Most notably, it includes 16 of the 20 characters, so a few teams are a little short-staffed:

Outside of the almost complete roster, there will be:

Marvel Tōkon system requirements

Below are the minimum and recommended requirements for both the open beta and the full launch:

Minimum requirements:

• OS: Windows 11
• CPU: Intel Core I5-8400/AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB/AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT 8GB

Recommended requirements:

• OS: Windows 11
• CPU: Intel Core I7-8700/AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 8GB/AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT 16GB

In 2023, I reported that the development team of then-upcoming fighting game Diesel Legacy included Mike Zaimont, previously a developer on Skullgirls and Indivisible who had been accused of sexual misconduct at Lab Zero, the indie studio behind those games. Diesel Legacy released to little fanfare more than a year later, but the next fighting game from the team behind it, Gameplay Group International, has accumulated significantly more buzz. That game is Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, due out on July 23.

After a viral media post brought Zaimont's likely involvement in Avatar Legends' development to light, the game's publisher has confirmed his role on the game.

"Mike Zaimont holds a position as an individual contributor at the developer Gameplay Group International working specifically on backend programming, engine architecture and netcode," a PR representative for publisher Paramount Game Studios wrote in a statement to PC Gamer.

When I reported on Diesel Legacy's development in 2023, the publisher's then-CEO Christina Seelye said that she hired Zaimont because "you have to create a way for [people] to show the world that they've changed and decided to do better," and that she believed he "was committed to it and that he didn't want everything that went down to be the end of his story. He wanted the opportunity to have the redemptive arc that's in so many stories that we all love."

Zaimont's former colleagues from Lab Zero who I spoke with disagreed with that framing. When the company fell apart, two of its former developers, creative director Mariel Cartwright and CEO Francesca Esquenazi, sued Zaimont over wrongful termination and retaliation. He counter-sued, which the employees I spoke with pointed to as one indication Zaimont hadn't actually made up for his past behavior, which included making a joke about the death of George Floyd in 2020 and an accusation of "frequently mentioning his genitals, forcing unwanted physical contact, making sexual comments about himself or about employee's bodies, insulting coworkers privately or openly in front of other coworkers, or using very personal details to threaten or demean coworkers when they didn't go along with what he wanted" at Lab Zero.

The lawsuit wasn't settled until April 2026, at which point a joint statement between Cartwright, Esquenazi and Zaimont "agreed to resolve" the lawsuit. Terms of the settlement were not made public.

Zaimont remains a controversial figure in the fighting game community, with Legend of Korra comic book artist Irene Koh raising his involvement with Avatar in a viral Bluesky thread last week.

Hey y'all, I wanted give people a heads-up that Mike Z is still working on the Avatar Legends dev team, for anyone who wanted to know before deciding whether to buy/support the game. (If you don't know who that is or need a refresher, here's the Kotaku article: kotaku.com/workers-leav...)

— @koh.money (@koh.money.bsky.social) 2026-07-15T00:54:40.994Z

"As an Avatar + fighting game fan, I was extremely disappointed to hear that he's involved. I'm proud of my work on the Korra comics & contributions to the IP over the last decade," Koh wrote, after publisher Paramount seemingly went radio silent after being asked about his involvement.

Paramount has now disclosed Zaimont's role in development, but he hasn't returned to having a public presence online since 2020.

Remember how Sony sneakily added a PSN account requirement to Helldivers 2 after launch, thereby making it unplayable in the long list countries PSN still hasn't been rolled out to? And then Sony region-restricted a bunch of PC ports in those same countries, like God of War Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Tsushima, and The Last of Us 2 Remastered? And then remember how people complained so much that was all undone?

Apparently Sony forgot the last step, because upcoming tag fighter Marvel Tōkon has been region-restricted on Steam in 132 countries that don't have access to PSN.

I say that was all undone, but for some reason Until Dawn remains region-restricted. Fortunately, nobody cares about Until Dawn. Marvel Tōkon, on the other hand, has excited a bunch of players, and obviously appeals to the global fighting game community in countries where the genre's particularly big like Pakistan. Wouldn't you know it, Pakistan is on the region-restricted list. So is the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Egypt, Fiji, Jamaica, Monaco, and Vatican City, where I guess they'll just have to keep playing Baldur's Gate 3.

Rack up another loss for Sony, fresh off PR disasters like its retreat from physical sales, the U-turn on singleplayer games coming to PC, and doubling down on AI, which it thinks can "unleash the creativity of studios and further enhance the PlayStation experience."

If you do live in one of the countries where it'll be available, Marvel Tōkon is having an open beta on PC and PS5 that runs from July 24 to July 26. This beta will let you play Blade, who was recently revealed as a member of the same tag team as Ghost Rider, Loki, and for some reason Deadpool. Which is a shame if you're a fan of the spooky side of Marvel, but not the "lol so random" side. Was Nico Minoru busy washing her hair, or what?

We've gotten a good eyeful of the new Captain America swimsuit skin coming to Marvel Rivals, and I'm going to stop things briefly right here for a quick content warning: If you don't want to be looking at what PC Gamer's Chris Livingston described as "a new source of vibranium," avert your gaze now, because this thing is huge and I honestly don't know how it got into the game.

You were warned.

Did you see it?

Here, let's zoom in a bit.

That's right, Cap has an absolutely massive hog.

Not only that, but, well, it has jiggle physics.

That in itself is nothing new in videogames, but applied to this instead of those? I feel like we've entered a new era. Yes, Larian did it first, (actually, Conan Exiles did it first, and holy cow am I learning way more about videogame wangs that I expected to today) but given everything else Larian did in Baldur's Gate 3 I feel almost like that doesn't count. But dong jiggle physics in a mainstream superhero fighting game? That's something else entirely.

At first I thought maybe someone was just having a little fun with Photoshop or some animation software, but this flagpole is swinging everywhere. Little Cap isn't quite so pronounced in this video shared by the official Marvel Rivals X account but it's definitely there, and yeah, you can see it move too.

'The First Avenger' is a whole lot more definitely there in this clip shared by dejuna1 on YouTube.

Relatedly: What is going on with Cap's ass? And why is he wearing Borat's mankini? Never mind, I don't want to know.

Ludwig Kietzmann, a former editor-in-chief at PC Gamer's sister site GamesRadar, put forth an explanation for Captain America's massive hog—look, we might as well just say it—that I think stands up pretty well. So to speak.

The lore reason is Captain America was at Battle of the Bulge

— @ludwigk.bsky.social (@ludwigk.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-03T03:18:10.798Z

Anyway, this sure looks to be Captain America's Captain Winky, alright, and that leads me to wonder, as Kotaku's Ken Shepard inquired above, why?

Not that I have any particular objections—we've been doing it with women in videogames for generations, so if NetEase wants Cap to really be standing at attention, fine by me—but holy cow. Rob Liefield looks positively restrained by comparison.

Anyway, because I am an industry professional who takes his job seriously, I have reached out to ask: And soon, a long-suffering PR rep at NetEase will receive an email from an official PC Gamer address, and he will open it, and he will read, Hey, what's up with the big dong on the big dog?

I will update if he replies.

I'll admit I'm not a big fighting game person. I enjoy playing the likes of Mortal Kombat casually, but I don't get giddy for a new release. The one exception to that is Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, which I've loved ever since Sony revealed it at its 2025 State of Play. Despite Sony declaring it's pulling back from PC launches going forward, the superhero fighter is still on the docket for our desktops.

Developer Arc System Works has just announced that a Marvel Tōkon open beta test will take place from July 24-26, available on PC and PS5. The previous closed playtest was exclusive to Sony's console—greedy. This open beta features more stages and modes compared to the previous test, as well as Blade. ASW promises further details are coming soon.

I'm just glad to finally be able to play the only fighting game I think I've ever actually been hyped for. Honestly, it's pretty ironic that Sony's retreating from PC while I'm jumping at the bit to play one of its console exclusives on my computer at launch. Maybe the previous PC ports would have done better if they had been released on both platforms simultaneously, but what do I know?

Alongside this news, Arc System Works has also revealed the final fifth superhero team coming at launch, the Samurai Outriders. All in all that brings the full roster to 20 heroes (or villains) across five different teams:

• Unbreakable X-Men: Storm, Magik, Wolverine, Danger
• Amazing Guardians: Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Peni Parker
• Fighting Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Hulk
• Knights of Doom: Doctor Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, Carnage
• Samurai Outriders: Ghost Rider, Blade, Deadpool, Loki

That's a pretty stacked roster if you ask me, and I'm a massive fan of how these iconic characters have been represented here—Iron Man's Gundam-infused suit is perfect. The open beta will be a good chance for fighting game freshies like me to get the hang of things before the full game launches on August 6, 2026. I'll need it.

Back when the GTA Trilogy trainwreck happened, Dominic Tarason wrote a piece for us making the case that old games shouldn't be delisted when they're rereleased. It hasn't stopped happening, of course, and most recently Dead or Alive 6 was removed from sale in favor of Dead or Alive 6 Last Round, a rerelease so underwhelming it's currently got a 70% negative user rating on Steam. For comparison, the original version is currently 70% positive, and that's after players started giving it negative reviews as well in protest.

Forefront among the complaints is the fact the DLC is even more expensive in the rerelease, and while transferring a save from the old version will unlock most of the characters and costumes you'd already paid for, crossover SNK characters Mai and Kula aren't included and have to be paid for again.

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round is also being criticized for how barebones it is. While one stage has had its lighting upgraded, otherwise it's not a noticeable difference visually. Costumes do unlock faster in Last Round, but the addition Koei Tecmo is billing as big-ticket excitement is just a photo mode.

The Dead or Alive series has spent a long time struggling to be taken seriously as a fighting game, periodically promising to tone down the jiggle physics and focus on the fighting, but as soon as the DLC costumes roll out suddenly it's time to flog bikinis and bunny outfits to horndogs with deep pockets. Players who were hoping this would be an opportunity for Dead or Alive to actually be a better fighting game aren't impressed.

As one Steam review puts it, "It's insulting. Tecmo just sees this as the coomer franchise and thinks they can get away with the absolute bare minimum." Others complain about the install size being "40% bigger" and the fact it still doesn't have rollback netcode or crossplay, but frustration about the pandering is paramount.

"This is genuinely the biggest scam Koei Tecmo has pulled so far," another review says, "and the fact that this game's Steam Community page is already filled with horny content explains a lot of things."

Rivals of Aether 2 isn't the only Smash Bros.-esque fighting game on Steam, but it might just be the best—unlike the first game, though, it hasn't included any guest characters just yet. Even Shovel Knight, who appeared in the first Rivals of Aether game, was effectively succeeded by an alarmingly sexy shark man earlier this year (listen, I'm just reporting the facts). But next year, Yacht Club's newest retro-inspired icon, Mina the Hollower, will join the game's roster.

Confirmation of that came in the form of a brief teaser shown during EVO, which doesn't so much reveal the character as much as it reveals that there will be a reveal of the character eventually. Mina will actually be playable sometime in 2027, where she'll join the likes of that sexy shark man and a bunch of other anthropomorphized animals. In that sense, I suppose she'll fit right in.

Developer Aether Studios also used EVO weekend to announce expanded modding tools for the creation of custom fighters in Rivals of Aether 2, as well as another new playable character who will release much sooner on Aug. 4.

Instead of a gothic mouse lady, Gouie is a goopy, slimy orb-shaped platypus who swallows his foes and rips off chunks of his slippery body to chuck all over the stage. His voice work alternates between a cheery, childlike voice and a bassy growl, resulting in a despicable little bastard that sounds as putrid as he looks. I love him.

It's nice to see Yacht Club taking some victory laps after the release of its latest game. The studio was open about the dire straits it'd be in if Mina the Hollower was a flop, but it instead turned out to be a pretty incredible game that has sold like hotcakes. In their 90% review, PC Gamer contributing writer Kerry Brunskill said the game "is a gloriously gothic combination of ferocious combat and beautiful scenery."

Whether you're talking about multiverse-upending event comics or that time Shadow the Hedgehog called Darkseid "pathetic," comic book stories love taking unrelated groups of characters and smashing them together. The same is true of traditional fighting games, where Ryu is as likely to be seen throwing fireballs at the Hulk or Minecraft Steve as he is at Guile.

Currently, superhero tag battler Invincible VS is limited to the world of Robert Kirkman's acclaimed Image comic—but let's say I'm tired of watching Battle Beast smash other Invincible characters into gore. I want to watch him smash my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man into gore. In an interview with MMORPG.com, game director Dave Hall and lead combat designer Bau Bautista agreed that sounds pretty neat.

"We're definitely not above that," Hall said. “We're always down for a crossover. I think it's really exciting to think about, and let's hope we can do some in the future, but nothing that we can talk about right now."

As MMORPG points out, there is precedent for that specific crossover: Spider-Man has been spotted in Invincible comics and vice versa. Invincible is itself informed by all sorts of nods to characters from DC and Marvel, so crossovers like that are more of a full circle moment than they might be in, say, Fortnite.

But it seems like guest characters in general are of interest to Hall and Bautista, who are also excited about Mortal Kombat's koterie of kharacters. “We'd love to have Sub-Zero and Scorpion! Bring them over, that'd be great," said Hall. "If we have that opportunity, we will definitely take it," added Bautista. There's precedent there, as well: Omni Man was a guest fighter in Mortal Kombat 1.

Currently, Invincible VS is focused—as you might expect—on other characters original to the Image comic. Immortal and Universa are due to join the game June 30, when its first season begins.

After long-time Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada departed Bandai Namco last year—having now started up his own studio under SNK—the game director behind the last two entries is now following in his footsteps.

Kohei "Nakatsu" Ikeda has been with the developer for 20 years, first joining the team behind Soulcalibur 4 before eventually becoming the game director for both Tekken 7 and Tekken 8. Nakatsu announced his departure with a lengthy message over on his X account. "Sharing excitement, celebrating together, and spending unforgettable moments with you all became one of the greatest treasures of my life," he said.

"There were joyful moments, and many difficult ones as well. There were times when we celebrated together, and times when I received passionate criticism and encouragement. Yet every one of those moments helped push both myself and the Tekken Project forward."

It seems as though Nakatsu doesn't intend to exit the industry entirely, ending his message with: "As I look forward to the future of Tekken and the FGC, I will also continue taking on new challenges as a game developer. I hope our paths cross again someday."

His departure continues to whittle down Tekken's top brass—producer Michael Murray remains as one of the most visible faces of the series, along with director Yasuki Nakabayashi. Though I certainly wouldn't be surprised if, a few months from now, Murray also walks away from the company.

It's a real shame to see both Nakatsu and Harada's absence for a game that has been so shaped by both of them. I'm sure that Tekken 8 hasn't been an easy game for either of them—bombshell microtransactions that only emerged weeks after launch with no prior notice and caused a huge upset. A near-universally panned second season which plagued the game for an entire year as fans lamented a further push into an already-criticsed aggressive playstyle. Season 3 got off on an equally bad foot after it felt like Bamco wasn't holding up its "back to basics" promise, but recent patches have begun to turn the tides back in the game's favour.

Whether Tekken 8's rocky first years influenced Nakatsu and Harada's decisions to skedaddle or if it's all coincidence, it's understandably causing a little concern for Tekken's future regardless. Seeing two of its biggest figures gone feels like the end of an era. Fresh faces could end up being exactly what the fighter needs, but for now? It's a bit of a bummer.

Katsuhiro Harada may have departed Bandai Namco at the end of 2025—it seems, unfortunately, in favour of opening up a Saudi-funded studio of his own—but he can't shake his 30-year history with Tekken that easily.

During a visit to Atlanta for an appearance at Momocon, Harada made sure to stop by and document his visit to one very important place: Waffle House.

But what the hell has Tekken got to do with Waffle House, I hear you ask? It's been a bit of a running gag in the community at this point, with fans asking Harada over the years to turn the American establishment into a stage for the fighting game. Presumably due to all of the fights that seem to occur in them, a phenomenon that is beyond my understanding as a Waffle House-less Brit. I have to assume it's the equivalent of people scrapping outside a Wetherspoons on a Friday night after one too many two-for-£12 pitchers.

Harada questioned what all the hoo-ha about Waffle House was back in 2024, asking: "Why do some communities send me requests for 'Waffle House'? Please be sure to explain the basis for the request, including the original story, history, and background. I look forward to an explanation from someone who knows more."

A year later Harada then revealed that he'd been trying to get in touch with Waffle House about a potential collaboration, seemingly to no avail. "I've actually tried to make contact through several different channels," he posted to X in May last year. "However, and this is purely my own speculation, I suspect that the lack of response may be due to the fact that the project I am known for revolves around 'fighting-themed video games,'" adding that getting no response was "very rare."

And thankfully, it seems the joke has not died with his departure from the game. "I finally made it to WAFFLE HOUSE," Harada declared on X over the weekend. "The staff are always friendly, and when I asked if they would sell me a menu, they sold me one for $5. Next time, I'll be back at 3 a.m. for fight time."

Harada was kind enough to provide some visual evidence in the form of his classic pose outside the Waffle House, a picture of the food, and one where Harada is wielding a chair as a weapon. I approve.

While I suspect we won't be seeing any Waffle House-adjacent stages appearing in Tekken or whatever Harada is cooking up over at his brand-new VS Studio—apparently during his Momocon panel he once again iterated that he attempted to call their PR apartment but received no answer—I appreciate the little ways he's continuing to stay active in the community he spent so many years being a part of.

My favorite part of Smash Bros. isn't even really the fighting. It's seeing how in the hell you take characters like Minecraft Steve, Pac-Man, and that scum bastard dog from Duck Hunt and turn them into viable fighting game characters. If you feel the same way but wish there was more PC gaming representation in the platform fighting genre, I have great news for you: Guy Spelunky is here.

If you don't know Guy Spelunky, he's the guy from Spelunky. If you don't know Spelunky, it's the game that Guy Spelunky is from. Sorry, I meant to say that it's the universally acclaimed roguelike platformer we dubbed one of the best platformers on PC—and the guy from that game is now in Fraymakers, an indie take on Smash Bros. with a PC-centric roster. Developer Team Fray first formed while working on the browser game Super Smash Flash 2. Guy's joining the likes of Octodad, the Impostor from Among Us, and Hat Kid from A Hat in Time.

Guy was revealed in a trailer that dropped last Thursday, and as you might expect, his moveset is stuffed with little references to the game he's from. He brandishes a whip, spike boots, shotgun, freeze ray, and so on as he sends foes flying.

Bombs appear to give him some neat set play potential, and the fact that he recovers by climbing up a rope is a cute touch. It seems like those last two items come in limited supply, though, so he might have a rough skill floor. If you're coming from Spelunky I assume you're used to dying repeatedly anyway.

If you'd like to spelunk into Fraymakers itself, you can check out the game's Steam page.

Marvel's profitable relationship with Capcom began with arcade beat 'em up The Punisher in 1993, but quickly switched to fighting games with X-Men: Children of the Atom in 1994. The X-Men were mega popular at the time, so it made perfect sense. One problem, however, was that Marvel was more protective of its characters in the '90s.

"I remember it was pretty challenging," Takuya "Tom" Shiraiwa, a former localization lead at Capcom, recently told Time Extension, "because they had very, very specific rules about their characters, like their behaviours and their personalities, right?"

The first round of conversation was always about which characters would be allowed. Just because Spider-Man appeared in some X-Men comics doesn't mean you can have him in your X-Men game, for instance. It didn't stop once the full cast of characters was decided on, though.

"When we came back and started working on the character," Shiraiwa said, "we usually submitted all the character animations on videotape to get approval. And when we submitted Juggernaut, they said, 'No, Juggernaut can't jump. He's too heavy.'"

A significant villain for the X-Men, Juggernaut is Professor X's stepbrother who got superpowers from a demonic gem. (Comics!) Those superpowers make him a tank-sized Übermensch who is literally unstoppable, though I've never read a comic that suggests he can't jump. At one point he leapt out of a plane without a parachute, though I suppose that was more of a controlled fall than a jump.

It was Shiraiwa's job to convince Marvel to let Juggernaut shoot the J. "I was like a middleman at the time. So I remember I reasoned with them, 'Okay, but what's he gonna do when he finds a big hole in front of him? Like a big gap? Will he be able to jump then?' But they said, 'No, in that case, he will simply fall into the hole and just keep running when he lands' I was like, 'Okay, that's fine, but this is a head-to-head fighting game; he needs to jump.'"

Capcom eventually got its way, and in X-Men: Children of the Atom and its follow-up, Marvel Super Heroes, Juggernaut absolutely jumps. Which is important, because one of the selling points of Capcom's superhero fighting games were their extra-high levels, with plenty of vertical space for pulling off aerial combos. When several of the characters can fly, it makes sense.

"We had lots of headaches at that time", Shiraiwa said. "The funny thing is, though, after Capcom released maybe one or two Marvel head-to-head fighting games, and they were extremely successful, they were like, 'Anything goes. You can do whatever you want.' So that made me wonder why they had been so strict with us in the first place. But I guess money changes everything."

Things are obviously different these days, and games like Marvel Rivals make it plain that modern Marvel isn't nitpicky about who can jump, or twerk. If you'd like to go back to the old days, the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics you probably bought just to get Marvel vs. Capcom 2 also includes the brutally difficult X-Men: Children of the Atom. (Magneto can go and do one, frankly.)

Just quietly, the surprise highlight of that collection was The Punisher, a goofy and ultraviolent beat 'em up that lets you bring a gun to a knife fight. Since half your enemies are cyborgs and ninjas, I think that makes it fair.

Mortal Kombat 1's post-launch support may have petered out quickly despite relatively strong sales, but spare a thought for Injustice fans: It's been almost a decade since they've had a new game to chew on. It may be time to dust off the ol' batarangs, though, as a new report suggests Injustice 3 is developer NetherRealm Studios's next game.

An article from MP1st published Wednesday alleges that a Warner Bros. Games employee's resume contained Injustice 3 as a game they had worked on. It points out that corroborative rumors about the game have swirled for over a year now, such as one instance where Aquaman and Superman's voice actors reportedly told fans that Injustice 3 was in development.

It would honestly be more surprising if NetherRealm delivered three Mortal Kombat games in a row or something new altogether, as the developer has swapped between the two series consistently since Injustice: Gods Among Us first debuted in 2013. They have even borrowed mechanics and characters from one another—The Joker popped up in MK11, Sub-Zero could go up against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Injustice 2, and environmental object attacks were carried over into MKX from the original Injustice.

If Injustice 3 is in fact the studio's next game, I'll be curious to see if they roll with the whole Batman vs. Superman shtick yet again. NRS has had plenty of time to play around with villainous inversions of the Man of Steel, especially since both Homelander and Omni-Man ended up in MK1, so I might welcome a more grounded superhero story. But hey, maybe that wouldn't be a good fit for a game where Batman can fire a missile at his own adopted son.

Regardless of what the next game is, it feels like NRS has secured a niche for itself in the fighting game space with its superlatively expansive single player modes and easily performed "dial-a-combo" inputs, even if MK1 was an uneven reboot. Since Mortal Kombat's 2011 version, NRS fighters have consistently come out every few years, so I have a feeling we'll find out what's next relatively soon.

I've never read Invincible, but through playing the acclaimed comic's new licensed fighting game, I feel I've gotten to know its characters inside and out. I don't say that because I know any more about them than when I started, but because it's pretty easy in this game to punch people into showers of gore.

About a dozen seconds into the intro cinematic, Invincible Vs's titular teen hero is launched by his own father through a bypassing stranger's head, killing them instantly. My first point of feedback is that this guy seems extremely vincible.

It's good that he has friends then, since this is a 3v3 tag fighter like Marvel vs. Capcom or Dragonball FighterZ. And assists are truly where the game shines—each character has a relatively simple suite of moves split between light, medium, heavy attacks, specials, boosted variants of specials, and supers, but the fun really begins when you start using multiple kits in tandem.

You can swap in your buds during a fight for either one-and-done assist attacks or an active tag, which lets you switch to piloting them even while mid-combo. A combo limit meter prevents you from styling too hard all on your lonesome, but it resets when you tag, letting you go on for ridiculous stretches of punishment. It's immediately fun and freeform, and it feels great to let loose on a foe without having to spend hours identifying safe pressure options in the training room beforehand.

That may sound aggravating to be on the knuckle sandwich end of, and it can be, but you aren't trapped as soon as you get hit. If you hold down medium and heavy attack right as your opponent swaps characters mid-combo, you straight-up escape it. Of course, the enemy can feint an active tag for a fakeout, use a different combo, or delay the tag to make the timing trickier, so there's a degree of guesswork and mindgames going on even when one player is getting trampled. Fighting games thrive in these sorts of split-second 'I know that you know that I'm going to counter' flashpoints.

If you've played the Killer Instinct reboot, which some of Invincible Vs's developers worked on a decade ago, it's not exactly like the combo breaker system, but it pays off the same way: the game's strategic aspect doesn't screech to a halt when one player is winning hard.

If you're worried about cramp-inducing pretzel motions or double 360 stick inputs, don't be: Invincible has a one-button autocombo for inefficient but reliable bursts of damage (these lead into supers naturally and are suitable ways to set up active tags, but they fill up your combo meter fast), and specials are all bound to the same button press. I assume this game will attract fans of the show who have never picked up a fighter, and to its credit, it is certainly less intimidating than the likes of Tekken and Blazblue despite being 3v3.

Based on my initial impressions, Invincible Vs's biggest triumphs are as a tribute to the comic, the show, and the online fandom around them. One of the animated loading screen icons is a chibi Omni-Man doing his "think, Mark!" pose. As fights go on, characters bark insults at each other as their costumes get slashed to ribbons and drenched in blood. Any time Battle Beast opens his mouth, I reflexively go, "Hell yeah, Battle Beast" even though I barely know who he is. [Hell yeah, Battle Beast —Ed].

Its enthusiasm was just infectious enough that I wished it gave me more ways to play around in this world outside of the human-on-human versus mode.

There is a story mode, but it clocks in at around an hour and didn't impress me outside of its cutscenes—which were admittedly pretty sick. I still feel like I don't know much about the cast, but it's entertaining to watch superheroes yell obscenities and reduce each other to red mist. I have a feeling there's more to the comic than that, but this is a fighting game without much time to get nuanced, so it focuses on frenetic, gory action.

The premise of this mode is that a mysterious force is making various Invincible characters beat the snot out of each other, and that's exactly what happens, but many of these fights are pared down to 1v1 or 2v2 for narrative reasons. In other words, that assist system I mentioned—the lynchpin that makes all these simple kits shine by combining them—lacks a presence in the story mode, and the result is a parade of disposable battles that lack energy.

Once you've seen the cutscenes a single time, there's no reason to return to this mode, and while it captures the cadence of an action-packed superhero comic, I was disappointed that I rolled credits in about as long as it takes to read a trade paperback. (The comic, in its entirety, is way longer). I'd say it works as a tutorial, except it didn't even really teach me anything. On normal difficulty, the AI rolls over when met with autocombos and special spam, and everything I learned about tagging and assists came from separate, canned training missions.

Arcade mode doesn't fare much better. There's a handful of different difficulties, as well as unique endings for each character, but as a greenhorn to the series I felt like I was peering into a world of out-of-context spoilers. I'm one of those weirdos who plays fighting games specifically to check out the casual modes and singleplayer stories, and in that regard Invincible Vs feels like the old days, before Mortal Kombat introduced lengthy storylines and Street Fighter went Yakuza-lite.

I'm a bit disappointed, because that Killer Instinct reboot I mentioned from some of Invincible Vs's team had an innovative, roguelike-inspired solo mode called Shadow Lords. I was curious to see if a follow-up to that would show up in this game. It didn't, and nothing takes its place.

To be entirely fair, this game's emphasis on versus mode is not unusual for the genre, and it lines up with what executive producer Mike Willette told me when we chatted about the game last year: "We want you to become an online warrior. That's … where you're gonna see what fighting games have to offer."

But when I'm in the mood to grind a ranked ladder, I already have plenty of games to choose from, whether we're talking about fighting games or not. I enjoyed Invincible Vs's action plenty, but I had a hard time identifying the hook that'd keep me coming back aside from winks and nods meant for a fandom of which I'm not part.

Tifa Lockhart might be a Final Fantasy 7 character first and foremost, but another community has been wishing for her presence for a hot sec now: the Tekken community.

I always used to associate guest characters with Soulcalibur's zanier choices like Yoda, Ezio, and our very own PC Gamer mascot Geralt of Rivia. But other fighting games have been stuffing all sorts of weird outsiders into their rosters for a good while now. Tekken 7 had freakin' Negan from The Walking Dead, for example. But that game also had another guest character, one Noctis of Final Fantasy 15 fame.

It means that it wasn't totally out of the realm of possibility that Tekken 8 could end up with another Final Fantasy character, and the one everyone campaigned for the hardest? Tifa. It makes sense! She's a brawler, and her vibe feels perfect for a 3D fighting game. The only other character I saw people going so hard to bat for was Yakuza's Kiryu.

And then at the end of the first season, we got our Final Fantasy character. Except, erm, it was actually Final Fantasy 16's Clive Rosfield. A cool character in his own right, but he's no Lockhart.

The chances of a second Final Fantasy character are slim, but now they might be none if the latest rumours are anything to go by. Whispers are bouncing around the FGC that Tifa might actually end up in Capcom's own Street Fighter 6. A rumour which has left myself, and the Tekken community, in shambles.

"The Tekken bros shouldn't have asked for Tifa," one Reddit comment joked, before referencing the former Tekken head's mantra of Don't Ask Me For Shit: "Harada was very clear." Another comment on a different post said "If this is true then this is a big fumble for Tekken."

Another redditor summarised my own feelings pretty well: "I just never ever imagined in SF’s 30+ history, we would potentially be getting Tifa as a playable character. The one character Tekken fans have been asking for since 8 came out no less."

The secret, tiny possibility is that Tifa could arguably be in two fighting games. Nier: Automata's 2B is in both Soulcalibur 6 and Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising. That's a 3D and a 2D fighter! That could be Tifa! But they're also two fighting games from different generations unlike Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6. But hey, a girl can always hope.

And of course, rumours are always exactly that: just a rumour. Nothing's confirmed, so we'll just have to wait for Capcom to reveal the next season's fighters in its own time.

If you'd asked me to guess which hill Capcom would choose to die on when it comes to Street Fighter 6, 'one where there's random incest' would not have even been in my top 10 guesses.

Yet here we are, a month out from the addition of DLC fighter Alex—long-time series staple, first-time incester—who, for whatever reason in this game, marries his second-cousin-slash-adoptive-sister and impregnates her. Sure, his status as a New Yorker makes marrying your second cousin legally fine, but I also wouldn't want to be known as the guy shacking up with anyone who is even a little blood related to me.

When players began asking the incredibly reasonable question of "Hey, Capcom, what the hell?" Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama basically came out and said… sorry if you're confused by the story. But a promise was still made to "revise certain text passages that may have been misleading," which is what happened in a patch last week.

The problem? Alex has now gone from being openly, brazenly incestuous to still being incestuous, but incredibly shady about it.

They changed Alex's World Tour dialog in SF6 (after and before): from r/Fighters

The original passage in the World Tour story—which refers to his wife Patricia's father, Tom—reads: "He's a cousin of my mom and was a sparring buddy of my dad."

The passage now? "He's a distant relative of my mom or something, and was a sparring buddy of my dad."

Or something. Or something! Making it more cloak-and-dagger makes it feel so strangely dodgy, almost like he knows it's wrong and is trying to skirt the specifics. But I certainly won't: Alex is still married to someone he is blood related to and has knocked them up—nevermind the illustration that shows him holding Patricia when she is literally a baby. If I think about any of this too hard my head will explode… or something.

I have no idea why Capcom is so staunchly against making Patricia and Alex's relationship not weird. Neighbours, guys! Childhood friends! I can't believe I have to write this, but I am pretty sure there are at least half a dozen ways you can create a close relationship between two people without making them related.

So yeah. Alex now has an entry on his Street Fighter wiki page that reads: "Alex is the only known character to be married and have produced a child with a blood relative, Patricia." So way to go on that one, Capcom.

It's no secret that arcade fighters reward absurd precision and reaction times, and that means you need robust netcode if you want to play these games online and have a good time. While rollback netcode has recently become the standard for big name fighters, the communities behind older games are understandably eager to see it come to the classics—so much so in one case that there's a big pile of cash in it for capable modders.

FGC streamer and YouTuber Maximillian Christiansen (known online as Maximilian Dood) is prepared to make it raaaain for anyone who can "solve the issue of making rollback netcode work in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3," which is on Steam but uses less responsive delay-based netcode. If you're not sure he's good for it, just take a look at the Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite mod he'd put nearly $30,000 into as of 2024.

It's hard to overstate how transformative the tech can be for a fighting game—it's so prized that players will drown out its announcement with cheers and applause. Where delay-based netcode won't honor your button mashing until both players receive the input data, rollback netcode predicts what will come next and will quickly, you know, roll things back if it was wrong. It's as good a solution as has been cooked up for a genre where every frame of information matters, and it feels much better than the sluggish stretches that characterize a bad match played with delay-based netcode.

Christiansen reposted a stream highlight on X sharing his announcement. "I want to do something special," he said. "We've done a lot for the modding scene of Marvel vs. Capcom, I just am willing to put my money where my mouth is. Maybe just maybe we can move beyond this Parsec era of Ultimate Marvel 3 online."

Parsec is a third-party application that allows players to remotely use local play features through streaming, not unlike Steam's Remote Play Together. While it can be an improvement over delay-based netcode if all parties have a strong internet connection, Christiansen wants more for the venerable fighting game.

"The Smash Melee community did it, man. They did it in a freaking emulator wrapper. Somehow, they made matchmaking, they had rollback netcode," he said. "I'd be willing to put my money towards it to help support this community, and to help support this game for the long run."

If there's one thing that the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling was known for in the 1990s, it was wasting absolutely colossal amounts of billionaire Ted Turner's cash. You could say that the media mogul could afford it, but WCW's spendthrift ways were because it was always something of a vanity project: Turner made his name in cable television and, while he valued the loyal audience and advertising revenue of a WCW, his fatal flaw was being a wrestling fan.

Thus were born the so-called Monday Night Wars of the 1990s, where WCW and Vince McMahon's WWF (later WWE) went head-to-head: the difference being that the WWF had to wash its own face financially, whereas Turner could (and did) bankroll WCW's spending splurges. So one feature of the era was high-profile former WWF stars like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage jumping ship for obscene amounts of money. Another was chronically terrible creative decisions.

Which brings us to Glacier: a wrestling gimmick that, even by WCW standards, made for terrible viewing and was an exceptional waste of money. It was also an unashamed rip-off of Mortal Kombat's Sub-Zero, involved hundreds of thousands of dollars being wasted on pyrotechnics and an appalling costume, and utterly failed to gain any momentum before Midway's lawyers went "erm hold on" and WCW ran away from it as fast as the company could.

In the mid-90s WCW had seen some success by taking 'inspiration' from popular movies, such as when it re-branded the clean-cut babyface Sting as a brooding, gothic character heavily based on Brandon Lee's look in the Crow. As well as being a hugely popular videogame, and one that regularly made headlines, Mortal Kombat had been made into a 1995 movie, which despite being rubbish was a commercial hit.

Roll around 1996 and a wrestler called Ray Lloyd came on the scene, seeming like manna from heaven to WCW manager Eric Bischoff. Lloyd had spent the last few years working in Japan for a promotion that blended martial arts and wrestling, was a legitimate karate champion and black belt, and on his return to the US had been training at the same gym as several WCW wrestlers. He spoke to Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) about wanting to try a wrestling gimmick that was built around loads of martial arts moves, DDP went to Bischoff (who loved martial arts), and after a three hour meeting Bischoff signed Lloyd without even seeing him wrestle.

A fuller version of this story with more behind-the-scenes details can be heard on the excellent Wrestle Me podcast, the hosts of which have an especial talent for bringing out just how boneheaded and hilarious most of WCW's decision-making was.

WCW decided to spend hundreds of thousands on this gimmick, with Lloyd himself later admitting that the thought process behind the character was little more than "let's capitalize off the popularity of Mortal Kombat." First, it spent $35,000 having the legit prop house AFX Studios design a Sub-Zero-style costume; it then decided that wasn't nearly enough money to waste and asked them to come up with a spectacular ring entrance.

Glacier's entrance truly was special: blue lasers covered the arena, fake snow poured down from the ceiling, and blue lights illuminated him as he makes a show of taking off his costume. The cost? Lloyd later said he was told by WCW producer Keith Mitchell the full setup cost $400,000, and every time it was deployed another $10,000 in fees for the technicians who set it up.

Glacier was gradually introduced to the WCW audience in video vignettes that explicitly stole lines and imagery from the Mortal Kombat movie. Glacier promo: "In each of us burns the fury of a warrior." Mortal Kombat: "In each of us burns the soul of a warrior." Burns. The character's gimmick is ice. Anyone? Never mind. Such promos were the typical way of introducing a new wrestler that the company thought could be a star, and Glacier's ran from April 1996 until his debut in September that year.

Perhaps the most unbelievable road not travelled in this bizarre story, however, involves the name. WCW knew what the gimmick was, they knew what they wanted him to look like, but they didn't know what he would be called. A list of around 150 cold-themed names was made up, and one that came under serious consideration was Stone Cold.

For the non-wrestling fans, the WWF's 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin was shortly going to become the biggest wrestling star of the late 1990s, and a key difference-maker in the Monday Night Wars. By all accounts he came up with the name in 1996 after his wife told him to drink his tea before it got "stone cold." In a parallel universe, WCW would have already chosen that name for the ill-fated Glacier.

For his part, Bischoff wanted the name Cryonic, which is somehow even more fucking stupid than Glacier. Even WCW's clueless creatives baulked at that, though they gave Bischoff the sop of Glacier's finishing move being the "cryonic kick." Which is just, like, a karate kick.

Glacier was supposed to make his debut in July 1996, but another WCW gimmick kneecapped the character: Hulk Hogan's infamous heel turn and the emergence of the NWO stable. For a time the NWO was WCW's golden ticket, but it was also based on the illusion of authenticity and realism, with the likes of Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash playing exaggerated versions of themselves: in such a context, the Glacier gimmick looked as corny and cartoonish as it was.

The debut was pushed back, but WCW had already sunk so much money into Glacier that there was no question of an about-turn. Instead he made his debut on one of WCW's lesser shows against a jobber called The Gambler, before beginning a mid-card feud with Big Bubba Rogers (best-known for his time in the WWF as the Big Boss man).

Then someone at Midway noticed.

"I’ll never forget it," Lloyd would later recall, "'Come to my office.' It’s like the principal calling you. I thought I was in trouble! I walked into Bischoff’s office and was told, 'Midway is threatening a lawsuit.' I thought my career was over. and that it was nice while it lasted.

"I asked him if we were going to fight it. I remember [Bischoff] answering, 'You know, there’s nothing I like better than a good fight, but if we fight this, we’re going to lose and lose big.'"

Well, at least Bischoff was right about that. Lloyd suggested they change the costume, and Bischoff shot back "I can’t afford another thirty-five grand!" So Lloyd took the existing costume back to AFX and had it altered to a legally distinct Sub-Zero.

After a mere four matches, Glacier's look, entrance, and entrance music were all changed. Unbelievably, WCW wasn't done, and decided the solution was to create a world-within-a-world of WCW characters who only fought each other, with Glacier's primary feud being with… Mortis, a character that is basically a legally distinct version of Mortal Kombat's Reptile. Presumably Scorpion would've been too on-the-nose.

WCW began a ludicrous feud that revolved around Mortis stealing Glacier's helmet, which culminated in a match where Glacier won in just under two minutes. The money spent to get to a two-minute squash match was eye-watering, but maybe what's even more amazing is that WCW persisted with the gimmick and kept throwing money at something that was clearly never going to work.

Glacier would see out the remainder of his WCW career on the lower midcard as part of a small stable including Mortis, Wrath, and Ernest 'the Cat' Miller (the latter included purely because he also did martial arts moves). His last few months at the company would see the Glacier gimmick finally abandoned, and Lloyd appearing as some sort of sports coach.

You could say that Glacier encapsulates everything that's great and terrible about this era of wrestling. Right in the middle of its hottest-ever period, when the NWO has upended the business and WCW should be flying high, it's wasting what must have amounted to over a million pounds on a Temu version of a Mortal Kombat character, and just refusing to admit that it isn't working.

And while Glacier has to go down as a terrible gimmick, Ray Lloyd himself seems like a lovely bloke and admirably phlegmatic about the whole thing. Very few wrestlers in this era had creative control, and this comes across as a Bischoff vanity project that got out of hand. There's a great documentary called Beyond the Mat that shows the WWF's Vince McMahon speaking to potential signing Darren Drozdov, and lighting up when he hears the poor guy can vomit on cue. The gimmick McMahon came up with for Drozdov was Puke, a wrestler who vomits on defeated foes.

So it possibly could have been worse for Lloyd.

“Thanks to everyone who watched me perform, whether you were a fan or a critic," said Lloyd last year. "I’ve learned in this long, great career that the secret to success is going out there and doing your best, and you obviously can’t make everybody happy all the time.

"For people who were critics about my gimmick, well, god bless you for at least watching it and having an honest opinion. And the ones who were fans of the gimmick, thank you because it made my job worth it every night to go out there and be cheered."

Fighting games are hard. And I don't just mean they're hard videogames to master, with complex input strings and character match-ups to memorize. They're seemingly hard games to sell and convince new players to devote hours of their lives to—just look at recent League of Legends fighter 2XKO, which saw 80 developers laid off shortly after release.

Despite that, we're in the middle of maybe the most interesting year for fighting games that I can remember in forever, with multiple new games gunning for Street Fighter 6. Marvel Tōkon from Guilty Gear creator Arc System Works seems like it should be the front-runner, but two licensed fighters, Avatar Legends and Invincible VS, have recently been getting more buzz. Even though both are based on cartoons, it's clear from a glance that the people making them are diehard fighting game players themselves.

"Everybody should play every fighting game," Invincible VS game director Dave Hall told me in a recent interview. "Fighting games are just fun—we have a great IP here, and that's going to make people want to look at it a little more—but it's fun to get in there, press buttons, and hit people. Be competitive if you want to be, go as far as you can take it."

Hall played fighting games casually growing up, but when 2008's Street Fighter 4 came out, he started getting more invested in the competitive scene thanks to a colleague at his game studio, who was good enough to place third at fighting game tournament EVO. That's when Hall really got the fighting game bug.

"I was enthralled and fell in love," he said. "As a developer, I wanted to make these games. Three or four years later we started working on Killer Instinct, and it was really fun. For me, as a developer and a game fan, it was once-in-a-lifetime to be able to work on a fighting game—so for us to be able to come back and do [Invincible VS] is really awesome."

While Killer Instinct was a one-on-one fighter, Hall said Invincible's superhero roster lent itself perfectly to a tag team fighter—making it the second of three similar games coming out in a 10 month period (2XKO last October, and Marvel Tōkon coming August 2026).

And he's right: from the short amount of Invincible VS I had a chance to play, being able to call in an assist does a great job of recreating the multi-person battles from the TV series. Fighting game pros may soon prove me wrong, but I also got the sense that Invincible VS is a bit more approachable than tag fighters that have a tendency to be in high level play. Both Marvel vs. Capcom and Arc System Works' Dragon Ball FighterZ are (in)famous for extremely long "touch of death" combo strings that essentially guarantee a kill if the attacker doesn't screw up.

Perhaps that will end up separating Invincible VS from Marvel Tōkon among diehard players, though Hall said that they didn't shy away from complexity. "We really wanted to integrate teammates into the combo system, and that's something we really concentrated on," he said.

The cartoonishly bloody, over-the-top brutality of Invincible may end up being the bigger distinction from every other fighting game this side of Mortal Kombat. Now in its fourth season, the animated adaptation of Invincible remains one of Amazon's most consistent hit shows, and the developers have been teasing a singleplayer mode with involvement from the show's writers.

Even if the game ends up a little more approachable than some older tag fighters, when I asked Hall what success looks like for Invincible VS his mind still immediately went to the fighting game community. He said that the team has been diligent in acting on community feedback from alpha and beta tests. "We listen to all of it, for real. We do listen to every single part of it," he said.

"We continually do playtesting to validate we're going the right direction, and we're going to continue that until we ship. For us, success is just having a badass game, and hopefully the fans come."

Where do I even start? Street Fighter has, historically, featured some pretty weird storylines, but I don't think anyone was prepared for incest. Then Alex came along. This new DLC fighter for Street Fighter 6 (who first appeared in Street Fighter 3: New Generation) arrived on March 17, and let's not beat around the bush here: the dude is incestuous.

The beanie-wearing brawler's storyline concludes with the revelation that he marries and knocks up his second cousin (who is also his adoptive sister), Patricia. It's really, really weird. Maybe in this post-Game of Thrones world, Capcom thought incest was trendy. Unsurprisingly, players have emphatically said "No thanks."

Incredibly, though, Capcom's managed to find a way to make things a lot weirder. Rather than acknowledging the fact that this is creepy as hell or doubling down and defending this bizarre storyline, it's opted for… gaslighting?

It's hard to read the response (spotted by Eurogamer) in any other way. Here's what Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama had to say on X: "We apologize for any confusion that recent topics regarding Alex's story may have caused." So we're just confused? What are we missing here?

Nakayama continues: "While we have not changed the characters’ backstories, after internal review by the development team, we plan to revise certain text passages that may have been misleading in the near future."

To be clear, there is nothing to be confused about. Patricia is Alex's adoptive sister and second cousin. Capcom is not disputing this. It's all there in the storyline. But Capcom is insistent that we're misunderstanding the relationship, which has now been cleared up in what reads like a hastily-written bit of fanfic titled A Toast Between Fathers.

And when I say "cleared up", I really mean the short story just reiterates that Alex has known Patricia since she was a baby and is now married to her. It also notes that the pair grew apart for a while, but it also doubles down on the idea of him being a protective big brother.

If anything, this makes the whole thing even creepier. Capcom isn't simply presenting an incestuous relationship and leaving it at that—which would be weird enough—it's actually holding it up as a positive thing. This is romantic, apparently. And it's totally OK because they spent a few years not hanging out.

I've reached out to Capcom for more details regarding potential changes and what it thinks people are confused about, and I'll update this story with any new information.

Anyway, 2026 is nuts. And it's only March.

Tekken 8 didn't have a very good year in 2025, and it's with a heavy heart that I must report that it certainly doesn't look like matters have improved any. Back in February, our resident fighting game expert Mollie Taylor wrote: "I'm genuinely excited to see what direction Tekken 8 is going to take with its third season, while also desperately hoping that we're not staring down the barrel of another Season 2 misstep."

Unfortunately, it now looks like we were in fact staring down the barrel of another Season 2 misstep. Just taking a look at responses to the Season 3 balance patch notes on the game's subreddit reveals an avalanche of complaints from players who feel like Bandai Namco hasn't done diddly squat to smooth things out:

"I didn’t think it was possible to release another garbage patch after all the feedback they received and the time they had to make things right. Somebody give me my 'I fell for it again reward'," writes one player.

"It might genuinely be over. I cannot fathom how they spent a whole season with no balance patches only to come out with this garbage f*cking thing," adds another.

Steam reviews tell a similar story, with just 24% of reviews in the past 30 days being positive—leading to a recent "Mostly Negative" rating and an overall "Mixed" rating on the platform.

The negativity's so fierce, in fact, that Bandai Namco's gone ahead and issued both an apology and a promise to do better, again, per a news post on the game's official site: "We recognize that the battle experience we intended to deliver has not fully met your expectations.

"Moving forward," says the developer, "we will continue to pursue a battle experience where offense and defense are balanced around the Heat system, allowing players to engage in meaningful mind games and decision-making against their opponents."

Though the promised timeline seems a little long, given the air I get from players who clearly want an overhaul. An emergency patch is imminent to fix "critical bugs and unintended behaviors". Any major balance tuning, though, will have to wait until mid-April or even late spring:

"Fixes that can be addressed in the short term will be implemented sequentially, while changes with significant impact will be introduced step by step through each update after sufficient verification."

It might just be a case of underpromising and (hoping to) over-deliver, but given the doom and gloom I've seen from even just a cursory glance, I'm not sure this post'd fill anyone with confidence. The phrase "balanced around the Heat system" particularly seems out of touch, given how controversial it's been—Mollie called it "one of the game's most dividing new mechanics"—and might be read as doubling down instead of admitting fault. Either way, things aren't looking good.

The fighting game community has always been an inherently grassroots scene, which means more than a few eyebrows were raised last year when Saudi Arabian-owned megacity project Qiddiya acquired Evo co-owner RTS.

It was still sharing the load alongside Indian esports org NODWIN—which had relieved Sony of its co-ownership in September last year—but that is no longer the case. Evo is now wholly owned by Qiddiya, the tournament promising that its "traditions, values, and identity will remain unchanged." Yuh-huh.

In a blog post to Evo's website (thanks Eurogamer), it says that it still intends to run its three major tournaments this year—Evo Japan in May, the main event in America this June, and newest addition Evo France in October.

"Under RTS ownership, Evo's traditions, values, and identity will remain unchanged, with a continued focus on serving players, fans, and publishers at every level of the industry," the post reads. "Key leadership will remain in place, ensuring long-term stability, including Stuart Saw in his role as Chief Executive Officer at RTS."

The post says that Qiddiya's ownership "closer aligns Evo" with its "broader vision for gaming and esports," including its plans to, erm, build a mega esports district with four arenas. I can only assume it folds in nicely with Riyadh's Esports World Cup—another sportswashing attempt from Saudi, one which has had frustrating knock-on effects to grassroots events that have been well established for years at this point.

The Qiddiya City-owned RTS has taken full ownership of the Evolution Championship Series from r/Fighters

I also can't help but wonder what will happen when the Saudi government gives up on the FGC—even if it doesn't shelve its esports pursuit as a whole, fighting games are significantly less lucrative than the likes of League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Dota 2. I don't love the thought of megaprojects muscling in on a very community-driven space as is, but I dislike the thought of it being promptly gutted and tossed to the wayside even more.

A post on Reddit announcing the new ownership has been met with plenty of displeasure. "Return to grassroots," one commenter wrote. "And this, everybody, is why supporting grassroots locals should still be the priority over pushing big tentpole tournaments," another wrote while one person simply replied: "Evo is dead. Go to your locals."

Thankfully, the FGC does not live or die at the hands of Evo. There are a bunch of other genuinely fantastic majors that you can check out, including:

Just a couple of days after announcing it was slashing the 2XKO team in half, Riot says it's "still fully committed and working hard" on the game, and to prove that? Two new characters and the promise to iron out some of its more glaring issues.

In a blog post titled "What's Next + New Champs," game director Shaun Rivera said that the team is "doubling down on building for the FGC that loves this genre." What that looks like for 2XKO—right now, anyway—is keeping things pretty much the same while cleaning up a few problem areas.

"We've seen the conversation about what our core gameplay could or should look like in the future, and we want to clear one thing up," Rivera said. "We love that 2XKO is fast-paced, allowing your reactions and creativity to shine while providing a ton of depth to dig into. The skill ceiling of this game is high, and that's where it's gonna stay.

"We'll continue making balance changes that hit outliers in the meta while keeping the sauce of every character. At a high level, we want every champion to have defined strengths and weaknesses, and right now that's not clear enough across all of the cast." Rivera specifically highlights Ekko and Yasuo as two of the "sauciest in the roster," noting that their "weaknesses aren't apparently enough at the highest level of play."

Rivera also says that it's still full steam ahead for 2XKO's competitive scene—its Challenger event at Genesis X3 took place over the weekend—and is even planning to add access to some "exclusive in-game prizing" at locals to "reward players for joining their local community." This is something I'm particularly fond of—locals are the lifeblood of the FGC, and finding ways to encourage folks to get out and get stuck in through in-game rewards is mighty enticing.

As for what's new, 2XKO is planning to throw in a local duos mode at some point in the future, which'll let two players team up couch co-op style. Right now that's something you can only do online, but Rivera says the team wants to make "that experience more accessible."

The blog post also, surprisingly, dropped two new character teasers. The first one is for Akali, who Rivera describes as "a sharp, stylish ninja who cuts opponents down with deadly precision." The second is Senna who can "blast enemies with a massive cannon, then rush them down in her wraith form."

The post shares some very small work-in-progress clips of both champs, though there's unfortunately no word on when either one will be added to the roster yet.

It certainly seems like Riot is determined to keep plugging away at 2XKO for now, even after its layoff announcement. I still can't help but be a little wary—I've no idea what the developer actually wants or expects out of this game, and there's certainly a small anxiety eating away at me that once all of the pre-prepared content dries up, there'll be nothing left on the docket.

The worst part of Smash Bros. is that it's not on PC, and the best part of Rivals of Aether—aside from platform-generating rhinoceros beetle Kragg—is that it is on PC. But the excellent sequel, Rivals of Aether 2, lacks the character I got on with most in the short time I played the original game: Shovel Knight.

Yacht Club Games' signature dude was a gimmick-laden agent of chaos who pounded gems out of his foes and used it to shop for upgrades mid-match. To my delight, that playstyle is finally returning, with a few fishy twists.

The newcomer, Slade, is a rakish pirate shark who slices enemies up with a cutlass. But, like Shovel Knight, every hit draws out piles of currency which he can spend on upgrades. The most expensive one shown off in the trailer allows him to cheat death once, while another lets him hook onto opponents and draw them in. That and his slice-and-dice normals make him look a bit like Link from Smash Bros., if that's your thing.

He also cycles through bombs, boomerangs, shurikens, and other nonsense in the moments between scraps, so it seems safe to say he'll be perplexing to fight in skilled hands.

Hands-down, though, the best part of this trailer is Slade reeling in a fish from off-screen and letting it flop into a treasure chest he had left behind, where it then flies out and strikes a downed opponent. This is the kind of absurdity I come to platform fighters for.

The last two Rivals of Aether characters were a folding chair-flinging ant wrestler and a magnet-powered dinosaur, so it's clear the dev team is aware that the roster has to be absolutely stacked to compete with the likes of Sephiroth, Mario, and John Fire Emblem.

Slade first showed up in Dungeons of Aether, the apparently-pretty-good turn-based spinoff, so this news should be particularly appealing for anyone who mostly plays games with the word "Aether" in the title. Slade will release April 7, 2026.

Team Ninja is developing a new Dead or Alive fighting game as the series celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, the studio announced today during a Sony State of Play broadcast.

"The dawn of a new chapter awaits," teases the very brief trailer above.

Unless the developer is planning to pull a reset of some sort, this entry will be Dead or Alive 7, following the release of DOA6 in 2019. While 2026 marks the fighting game series' 30th anniversary, it seems like DOA7 is still a ways off. To fill the gap, a new version of DOA6, Last Round, is out on June 26, incorporating the original release's DLC and a new photo mode. It'll be getting further character releases as DLC.

It's a good time for a new Dead or Alive, with longtime series rival Tekken currently struggling with players. Perhaps DOA vs. Virtua Fighter will be the big story in 3D fighting games next year.

Just three weeks after its grand 1.0 launch and console release, Riot has slashed the 2XKO team in half. Around 80 employees are out of a job, some of whom have been around since the game's beginning.

Why? According to the developer's own words, "As we expanded from PC to console, we saw consistent trends in how players were engaging with 2XKO. The game has resonated with a passionate core audience, but overall momentum hasn't reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term."

Translation: People aren't flooding to 2XKO. The ones who are? Many aren't sticking with it long enough to dump an egregious amount of money on its skins.

It's a damning assessment so early on into the game's life. Even factoring in its early access release on PC, 2XKO couldn't even make it half a year before Riot decided it wasn't doing good enough. The developer maintains that the journey isn't over, but forgive me if I can't help but feel like the final destination is fast approaching.

The thing is, I cannot fathom what Riot wants or wanted from 2XKO. What kind of momentum did it expect from what is essentially a niche within a niche?

Specialist

I love fighting games, I've been playing them most of my life. I attend tournaments and my locals and try to stay as actively involved as I can, even when I'm not playing. But I also recognise they're not the absolute gangbusters they once were. Street Fighter and Tekken still do moderately well for themselves. Mortal Kombat finds an ample casual audience with each new release, and anime fighters like Guilty Gear Strive continue to pump out characters and content.

But they're not shooters. They're not MOBAs. The FGC is strong, but relatively speaking it's also small. They're intricate beasts where getting good involves studying frame data, punishers, and overcoming knowledge checks without any teammates to point fingers at when things go wrong. It's not exactly the most accessible genre.

That alone pushes fighting games into a niche. But make it a tag fighter, adding a second character you have to learn and essentially doubling your workload? It stuffs the game even further into that specialised box.

It was never going to have folks going to it like a moth to a flame. It can be a tough sell even to the FGC, let alone casuals or future fighting game fans peering in and looking for their first foray into the genre. Was Riot expecting Street Fighter level of fame out of the gate—a fighter that has almost 40 years of refinement and evolution behind it? Surely not, because that would be a very stupid thing to expect.

I do have to wonder if it was expecting a similar phenomenon to what it saw with Valorant. A game that waded into the territory Counter Strike had held down for so long—with a little corner inhabited by Rainbow Six Siege—and almost immediately cemented itself as solid competition. It's a game still going strong five years down the line, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Counter-Strike is also, you know, one of the most played games on the daily. With far more transferable skills across other shooters (and videogames in general). Valorant was always going to be a lower barrier of entry both executionally and mentally.

Even outside of any expectations, 2XKO is a game stuck in a weird limbo where the group it appeals to is disastrously small. It's not approachable enough to reel in the wealth of League players or Arcane fans, while transferring over its more unsavoury practices that are an immediate turn-off to the FGC—like ridiculously expensive skin bundles and grinding to unlock characters.

Combine all that with a painfully small roster (which feels even more claustrophobic when you gotta pick two of 'em) and it doesn't surprise me that 2XKO has struggled to come blazing out of the gate. But it also feels like Riot hasn't even given it a chance to fix up first.

Improvements are coming, but I can't see how announcing that in the same breath as putting half your team out of work is going to pick up the momentum Riot is so desperately craving. It feels more like a death knell, one that is understandably going to make its "passionate core audience" apprehensive to dedicate themselves to the game financially.

Maybe we'll find out exactly what Riot is expecting out of 2XKO when it shares its plans. When? "Soon." Let's hope we at least get through a single season of the game and a sizeable roster before any more downsizing threatens to kill the game off entirely.

Just a few weeks after the official launch of its 2v2 fighting game 2XKO, Riot Games is reducing the size of its development team by nearly half and laying off employees.

"As we expanded from PC to console, we saw consistent trends in how players were engaging with 2XKO," executive producer Tom Cannon wrote in today's announcement. "The game has resonated with a passionate core audience, but overall momentum hasn't reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term.

"With a smaller, focused team, we're going to dig in and make key improvements to the game, including some of the things we've already heard you asking for. We'll share some of our plans soon."

Riot told PC Gamer that about 80 roles are being eliminated, a little less than half the total 2XKO dev team, but an actual total isn't known at this point as developers impacted by the cuts will have the opportunity to apply for other jobs at the company. Riot also said its plans for 2XKO's 2026 Competitive Series remain unchanged.

The cuts to the 2XKO team would seem to be the latest move in a "refocusing" process that began two years ago when Riot closed its Riot Forge program and laid off 530 employees. CEO Dylan Jadeja said at the time that Riot had made "a number of big bets" since 2019 that weren't paying off adequately, and so it was going to shift its attention to "fewer, high-impact projects."

More layoffs followed in October 2024, although Riot co-founder Marc Merrill said at the time that the League of Legends development team "will eventually be even larger than it is today as we develop the next phase of League." Hints about that dropped at the end of 2025, when League executive producer Paul "Pabro" Bellezza and head of studio Andrei "Meddler" van Roon posted a video acknowledging that the studio has "been working on some bigger updates to League."

2XKO had been in development for close to a decade prior to its full release: It was first announced in 2019 but rumors of its existence went as far back as Riot's acquisition of Radiant Entertainment in 2016.

Following a short closed beta test, it launched into early access in October 2025, and then hit 1.0 on January 20, just 20 days ago. 2XKO isn't on Steam so we don't have access to player numbers, but cutting the team in half less than three weeks after launch doesn't point to good things. Riot said more information will be shared soon.

Tekken 8's second season has not been the most successful for Bandai Namco. The promise of a stronger emphasis on defensive play somehow manifested itself as even more offense and aggression, and has left a good chunk of players begging since last April for something to change.

Well, now that the 2025 Tekken World Tour has finally wrapped up, it looks like Bamco is ready to put the wheels in motion. During the TWT Finals over the weekend, we were treated to a trailer for Season 3 which seemed desperate to tell us one thing: Tekken 8 is going back to basics, promise.

It literally says that in the trailer, too: Season 3 goes back to basics. Refined balance. More conventional. More focused. More deliberate. A fresh start. It's a lot more straightforward and communicative than Season 2, which is certainly a good place to start. It's also exactly the kind of stuff players have been wanting to hear for the best part of a year. Hell, maybe even two.

But how that philosophy will manifest itself remains to be seen. Tekken 8's Heat system has been one of the game's most dividing new mechanics—a way for players to slice through pressure by activating it, temporarily buffing certain moves or allowing for combo extensions through Heat Dash. It's a powerful tool, one that you can activate once a round. It's easily the most pivotal mechanic in Tekken 8's offense-forward gameplay, hence its rather polarising stance.

Knocking that Heat gauge down to once a game rather than once a round would make its use a lot more deliberate—and there we go, that's one of that trailer's key words nailed right there. I imagine there'll be some tweaking of frame data to make certain moves that are plus on block a little less safe.

I'm genuinely excited to see what direction Tekken 8 is going to take with its third season, while also desperately hoping that we're not staring down the barrel of another Season 2 misstep.

Thankfully it's not that long a wait until Season 3 lands. Pre-orders for the season pass—which includes characters Kunimitsu (late Spring), Bob (Summer), and freakin' Roger Jr. (Autumn!!!), along with an unannounced Winter character, open up next week. The actual balance patch arrives on March 16. Will its success determine Tekken 8's future? I'm not sure, but it certainly might be the last chance the game has in the eyes of its most dedicated fans.

SNK dropped a trailer for season 2 of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, set to kick off on January 22, and an awful lot of fans aren't happy about it. The problem isn't the second season of character DLC, but the trailer promoting it, which many of them think is laden with AI generated content.

Comments on YouTube accusing the trailer of being made with generative AI began flowing almost immediately after it was posted. Some called out specific characters who look AI generated; quite a few others made the point that SNK is backed by serious money now and shouldn't be looking to cut corners with gen AI.

SNK was effectively acquired in 2022 by Saudi Arabia's Electronic Gaming Development Company, a division of the Mohammed bin Salman Foundation. Bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia (and credibly accused murderer), is the prime mover behind the $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts. So, yeah, a shortage of funds should not be an issue.

"All that Saudi money and can't pay someone a couple bucks to make real shit," YouTube commenter willthelemon5681 wrote.

Similar comments followed on Reddit and the Fatal Fury Discord, where fans expressed disappointment not just with the presence of AI, but also in the way it's overshadowed what looks like a very solid season that will see six new characters added over six months: Kim Jae Hoon, Nightmare Geese, Blue Mary, Wolfgang Krauser, and a pair of mystery fighters. As derpygoku said in the YouTube comments, "The lineup for this season is excellent but the usage of AI in this trailer is definitely not."

One now-former SNK and Fatal Fury Discord moderator stepped down because of the trailer, writing, "I'm thankful for what you guys did for us and all but this is too much for me to deal with, this is against what I stand for."

i was a SNK moderator for 6 years and official Cotw Discord for a year, this trailer made me step down after all those years, i don't / i can't promote a product that i don't support,thanks for all of those years friends, it was fun 🫡 bsky.app/profile/wari...

— @spicysauce.bsky.social (@spicysauce.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-01-16T01:03:01.095Z

All of this is nominally speculative: SNK hasn't come out and copped to using gen AI, nor have any little tiny 'made with gen AI' labels been spotted anywhere. I'm not great at picking out generative AI content from trailers—they say the eyes are the first to go—but I'm inclined to believe: When this many people, this quickly and confidently, are calling out the presence of AI-lookin' content, well, you have to think it's pretty likely that something is up, right?

This isn't the first time Fatal Fury: City of Wolves has irritated its fan base with a seemingly bad call: When SNK announced that soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo was being added to the game as a playable character, the response was decidedly mixed. Ronaldo is currently playing for Al-Nassr FC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a contract worth €200 million ($232 million) per year.

I've reached out to SNK to ask whether this new Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer does in fact contain AI generated content, and will update if I receive a reply.

One of the fighting game community's most prolific streamers and commentators has announced he'll no longer be attending EVO following the event's buyout by the Saudi government.

Sajam has served as one of the biggest bridges between the fighting game community and the larger mainstream videogame space over the last several years alongside other figures like Maximilian Dood. His presence at EVO has been a given up to this point, but that won't be the case any longer. In a 12-minute segment from a recent livestream, Sajam explained that he will no longer be attending EVO events after it was revealed in September that the organization had been bought by the Saudi Arabian government.

"You know, I've been going to EVO since 2014 and I'm not going now because of the buyout," he started. And before you type anything, I'm like 'Yeah man, if the US Army bought EVO I would also not go.'"

Preempting that folks might also begin citing that "there's a lotta evil corporations out there," Sajam retorted: "Evil corporations purchasing or owning the things you like always sucks. But the difference, I think, for most people here is the purpose of the ownership and then what exactly they're doing with it. It's not just 'The Saudi government owns EVO', it's like 'The Saudi government owns EVO and lots of other things with the express intention of using these as a vehicle to promote tourism and sportwash.'"

While he reckons it "won't affect EVO at all," Sajam said "It's a pretty big deal for me as a human," calling it "bad for me financially to not attend."

"It means I'm not going to EVO Vegas, it means I'm not going to EVO France. It means I'm not going to EVO Singapore. It means when they open the one up in Saudi Arabia—eventually, I'm sure—I'm not gonna be going to that one," he continued.

I mean, yeah, this whole thing has got to be a pretty big financial hit to him. As Sajam points out himself, he's been rolling with a pretty solid partnership alongside Chipotle—who have been terrorising EVO's in-between match ads for the last couple of years—and stepping away from EVO has a chance of directly jeopardising that.

"The purpose of our events and community is that we are grassroots and we do things in person and the fighting game events and tours are tacked onto what the fighting game community owns," he said.

"Street Fighter has to go to a grassroots-owned event to put the event on their tour. And they own Capcom Cup at the end which we accept and we work with them and that kind stuff. But the equity in the community is built on supporting your own scene by putting money into the organisers and events that are owned by your own community. That's the pillar of what makes fighting games unique and that we're separated from a lot of the problems that other esports scenes have."

Sajam says that he doesn't want anyone to feel like his decision is a guilt trip, though. I'm not telling you to feel bad about yourself as a human. No one gets flamed for going," he said. "I'm personally not going, but plenty of people will. There's plenty of people who don't like the buyout who are like 'Well, I'm still going to EVO. Fuck it.' And I'm sure they'll have a dope time. I'm sure if I went, I would have a dope time."

Ultimately, Sajam's biggest disappointment seems to lie with the developers behind the biggest fighting games. "One of the biggest things that pisses me off about all the buyouts already is that Capcom and their Pro Tour—and so is Tekken, right?—they're pretty deeply interlinked with the EWC [Esports World Cup, another Saudi-owned event] already," he said. "But they're so blatantly cool with just devaluing their own events. There was no fight."

As someone who has been equally frustrated by the Saudi government's encroachment on the FGC—which, as Sajam rightly points out, has always been by the community, for the community—I am absolutely here for significant figures like both himself and Maximilian Dood stepping away from their larger involvement with the event.

It's bound to be a big hit to both of their finances and exposure potential. Taking a stand against sportswashing is the exact kind of stuff I hope and love to see the FGC fighting back on—Sajam using his platform to make his stance clear is so very important, and I can only hope that more prominent FGC folks will start to follow suit.

After spending my life with a vague fear of fightsticks and button combos, I now have more reason than ever to finally learn how to play a fighting game: so I can someday be even a tenth as cool as Hisako Sakai, the 92-year-old Japanese woman who won the title of Tekken 8 champion during November's 12th biannual Care Esports tournament (via Automaton).

Care's tournaments, which the Mie prefecture-based organization has been running since 2019, feature rosters of senior citizen competitors in an effort to promote elderly social and mental wellbeing by creating "an environment in which the elderly can casually participate in esports," according to its website. Currently, Care hosts its tournaments in Japan's Mie, Gifu, and Aichi prefectures, but the organization hopes to someday organize nationwide competitions.

Livestreamed on Care's YouTube channel, the tournaments feature professional broadcast production with live commentary. The November tournament, which you can watch embedded above, saw a roster of eight seniors—the oldest being 95 years old—battling online in what were likely the most seasoned matches of the King of Iron Fist Tournament that the world has ever seen.

It's a phenomenal show, complete with post-match interviews and stat sheets featuring the competitors giving their best battle poses. While the fighters displayed a technical mastery of fighting mechanics that would rival my own—by which I mean they mostly relied on mashing and spamming throws—there were still some moments of breathtaking hype. It's worth watching the standalone video of Sakai's championship match just to see the brutal combo she pulls off at 3:44. Evo could never.

I'll confess I was rooting for 74 year old Armor King player Kato Sadayuki, but that was mostly due to the thrill of seeing an old man piloting a wrestler wearing a jaguar head. We all have our biases. But as it always does, skill wins out in the end.

When presented with her trophy after masterfully dispatching her seven rivals, Sakai—a Claudio main—said she was "so happy." I think I speak for everyone at PC Gamer when I wish her a long and fruitful career in virtual combat sports.

Katsuhrio Harada—one of the driving forces behind Tekken and the series head honcho for the last 20 years—is hanging up his fighting gloves at the end of this year.

He announced his retirement in a lengthy X post, saying that 2025 would be his final year at Bandai Namco and as the project leader on Tekken. "With the Tekken series reaching its 30th anniversary—an important milestone for a project I've devoted much of my life to—I felt this was the most fitting moment to bring one chapter to a close," he wrote.

A good chunk of the post is dedicated to his interactions with the community over the last three decades. "My roots lie in the days when I supported small local tournaments in Japanese arcades and in small halls and community centres overseas," he said. "I still remember carrying arcade cabinets by myself, encouraging people to 'Please try Tekken,' and directly facing the players right in front of me."

Harada said that those experiences "became the core of who I am as a developer and game creator," something which continued even as both Tekken and the FGC at large grew bigger. "Many of you continued to treat me like an old friend—challenging me at venues, inviting me out for drinks at bars," he wrote. "Those memories are deeply precious to me."

As for his retirement, he wrote that numerous factors are at play—the loss of "several close personal friends" and witnessing "the retirement or passing of many senior colleagues whom I deeply respect."

I can only assume one of the people Harada is talking about is Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki, who passed away in October at the age of 58. At the time, Harada posted to X, saying: "To think that he's gone at just 58 years old… Yes, everyone dies eventually… that's inevitable. But you… isn't it a bit too soon?"

Apparently, Harada even went to former PlayStation boss Ken Kutaragi for advice, writing that "His words quietly supported me in making this decision."

His post continues to say that he's been in the business of slowly handing off responsibilities for half a decade now, concluding: "Each project was full of new discoveries and learning, and every one of them became an irreplaceable experience for me. To everyone who has supported me, to communities around the world, and to all the colleagues who have walked alongside me for so many years, I offer my deepest gratitude. I'll share more about my next steps at a later date. Thank you very much for everything."

It is kind of wild to see Harada finally departing. It's difficult to think of a Tekken without him, and despite the fact that Tekken 8 has been in pretty rough shape in the last year, it'll still be a damn shame to see him go. His close involvement with the community—including always having an ear close to the ground in Western territories—made him stand out among other Japanese fighting game developers.

Aside from a very lengthy Harada-style social media post, he's also gone ahead and dropped a mix on Soundcloud called "TEKKEN: A 30-Year Journey – Harada's Final Mix," an hour-long musical homage to his career. I have been listening to it while writing this, and yeah, it's pretty damn good.

There's no word on who will be taking over in his absence just yet, and Harada isn't totally vanishing straight away. The Tekken X account posted its own statement, saying that Harada will still be making an appearance at the Tekken World Tour 2025 finals happening in Sweden at the end of January.

The post also has a quick paragraph about the series' future. "To our fans, rest assured that we are fully committed to future development and content plans for Tekken 8," it reads. "We will continue to take community feedback on the game and its content to heart to ensure that we uphold the vision and spirit built by Harada-san, dedicating our utmost efforts to ensure the legacy of the Tekken series continues as a fighting game franchise beloved worldwide."

Who would win in a fight? Comics writers know this is what fans argue about, endlessly, and feed those arguments with crossovers and stories like Batman vs. Superman. Usually it's naff stuff where characters just biff each other for a bit and then abruptly form a getalong gang as if they weren't battering each others' faces in just five minutes ago.

The developers of Mortal Kombat obviously weren't going to do anything so weaksauce. In the Injustice games, Superman's gone full evil and started a tyrannical regime straight-up called The Regime, which Batman leads a resistance against. The inciting incident of the whole storyline kills off Lois Lane and the Joker, and it gets wilder from there. By the time of Injustice 2, Superman has been imprisoned for his crimes, Clock King's had his daft head blown up, Green Arrow's been killed and replaced by a version of himself from a dimension where his wife died instead, and Gorilla Grodd's taken over Gorilla City in a bloody coup. Take that, Zack Snyder.

All that stuff is only relevant in story mode, of course, and story modes aren't normally the reason people play fighting games—excepting Tekken's agreeably insane one, with people throwing their family members off cliffs or into volcanos, hurling motorbikes at helicopters, and fighting bears. Usually though, fighting games struggle to tell a coherent story because they've got so many characters to work with. But comic books have been dealing with that problem for decades, and Injustice 2 simply steals the format. In the DC Universe, everyone already has a reason to fight everyone.

Weirdly, the plot's a lot like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Superman's a villain, Harley Quinn's a hero, and Brainiac's the final boss. Only in this version of events, Kevin Conroy's Batman is also on the side of the angels—well, if Harley and Catwoman count as angels—and you only have to defeat Brainiac once instead of over and over again until Warner Bros runs out of seasonal content to sell you.

The performances are much better than they need to be, thanks to facial animation that was well ahead of its time and voice acting by the likes of Jeffrey Combs from Re-Animator as Brainiac, Robert Englund from Nightmare on Elm Street as Scarecrow, Alan Tudyk from Firefly as Green Arrow, and Laura Bailey from Critical Role and basically 50% of all videogames as Supergirl.

Moments that could be ridiculous are embraced and handled straight, like Harley getting a double dose of fear toxin (one isn't enough because, she says, "I used to huff this stuff for kicks"), and hallucinating her greatest fear, which is the Joker coming back and convincing her to revert to the villainous sidekick she used to be. The same goes for Superman and Batman's final confrontation, where they reminisce about the old times ("I miss the people we used to be") before punching each other about the head and face for several minutes.

Where it gets properly over-the-top is in the fights, where suddenly characters can hurl each other into orbiting satellites or through the Earth's crust without anyone dying. The Flash has a super move where he runs so fast he travels back in time, dragging his opponent to distant epochs so he can throw them first at the sphinx then a tyrannosaurus rex, before returning to the moment before he left so he can throw them at themselves.

You go from that to fairly subdued scenes where Green Lantern regrets the fact he initially sided with The Regime and struggles with his anger issues. Then his rage manifests in the form of a Red Lantern whose sidekick is a cat that vomits blood, and also you're in Atlantis at the time. The dial swings between the sublime and the absolutely bugfuck as quickly as it does in superhero comic books, with as much cheerful disdain for tonal consistency as professional wrestling or French movies.

The one downside of Injustice 2 is that if you were depressed about Wonder Woman getting screwed out of a solo game after Warner Bros closed Monolith, unfortunately she doesn't get her due here, being reduced to Superman's second banana. But apart from her and Superman becoming fascists it's full of bang-on portrayals of its huge roster, including the first version of Harley Quinn to not annoy me.

Anyway, the answer to "who would win in a fight" is Swamp Thing.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection should have been an easy win. It bundles together the first four Mortal Kombat games, including the WaveNet version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 previously thought lost, as well as less fondly remembered spin-offs like Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero for the sake of completeness and the memes. It also comes with an interactive documentary about the history of the gory fighting series, à la The Making of Karateka. Sounds like the complete package.

Yet, within days of release, 55% of its Steam reviews are negative. "Input lag is unacceptably high in every game—even offline" says one, with some players complaining it's even noticeable in the menus. Others are upset that "the online's in a terrible state. Quick play matches with random people only. You can't queue for more than one game at a time, so the community's splintered between games." Another laments, "The 360/PS3 MK Kollection that came out over 10+ years ago had better netcode than this".

It's not just the lag and online that players are complaining about either, with the AI coming in for a drubbing as well: "Since half of the match is just the enemy social distancing and staying 6 feet away from me, God Forbid Milenna gets ******** covid".

According to Digital Eclipse's FAQ, lobbies are coming in a post-release update. "In the weeks following launch," they say, "we will add Online Arcade, a system where you can create lobbies, choose the players, and rotate games for the tastes of your private group of friends. We're finalizing the UI details on these features now."

There's also been a hotfix to deal with some audio issues and a handful of other bugs, which comes with the note: "Additional fixes will be addressed in the coming days in another update." It's entirely possible they'll turn this around, but it's a shame to have games that are 30 years old arrive on PC feeling like they needed more time in the oven. At least the documentary has been well-received—it's the focus of most of the positive reviews.

Last month, Capcom decided to do something relatively unheard of in the fighting game community: charge people to watch the Capcom Cup Finals and Street Fighter League: World Championship online.

Unsurprisingly, the pivot to pay-per-view has not gone down very well. With each ticket originally revealed to cost ¥4,000 (approximately $27/£20) separately or ¥6,000 (roughly $40/£30) as a bundle, the decision has generated a fair amount of backlash—in the Western world, anyway.

The general consensus from the replies under the initial X announcement and subsequent Reddit posts was that the move was a poor one—one comment called it an "Insane decision," adding: "This killed my hype for the [Capcom Pro Tour] honestly. I hope the rest of the FGC boycotts this bullshit as well, we are not doing PPV for tournaments now."

Another called the pay-per-view model "archaic," pointing out that even long-time PPV utiliser UFC has recently switched away in favour of a monthly subscription following a deal with Paramount. As one Reddit commenter put it: "I thought Capcom organised this circuit as a marketing tool for the game. Makes no sense to charge viewers to watch it. And esports is, unfortunately, still way too niche for that to be profitable."

A couple of weeks later on October 10, Capcom said it was "reviewing pricing and related details," promising to share additional context by the end of the month. Well, we're almost here, and it seems as though it's still not quite ready to settle on a new price point yet. But what it is ready to do is double down on the decision in an attempt to turn its esports tournaments into a more profitable venture.

"The decision to introduce pay-per-view live streaming for Capcom Cup 12 and Street Fighter League: World Championship 2025 stems from our commitment to promoting our esports business in a sustainable manner over the medium to long term," a new post on the Capcom Fighters X account reads. "Our goal is to grow these tournaments into internationally competitive events by reinvesting in participating players and teams, our partners, and related business areas."

The post continues: "We sincerely acknowledge the many opinions we have received from everyone and are carefully discussing with all relevant parties. As a result, the coordination process is taking some time."

It wraps up by saying that pricing details aren't ready just yet, with Capcom promising "to provide clearer and more accessible updates regarding Capcom esports" in the future. Before, you know, a light bit of marketing promotion by announcing that ticket sales kick off on November 12.

Ultimately, I'm not sure how a pay-per-view model will shake out for Capcom. It'll certainly fare much better in Japan, where this sort of thing is common and where a good chunk of Street Fighter 6's fanbase lies, but I don't think the same can be said for fans in America, Europe, and beyond.

It seems dedicated to trialling the PPV scheme at least this once, though, so I'll be interested to see if it can achieve the growth it's after even while stewing in some pretty bad rep. And whether it'll be back for future tournaments—I guess we'll find out nex

As someone who's been to a whole bunch of fighting game tournaments over the years, I thought I'd seen it all—Beyblade battles, best-dressed contests, real-life tier lists taking place on giant velcro-laden whiteboards, pro players taking their shirts off for money—but a woman absolutely bossing a Mortal Kombat 1 tournament mere days after giving birth, all while holding her newborn? That might just be the coolest thing out of all of 'em.

As reported by Dexerto, Florida-based player Legi0n attended her local monthly tournament in Orlando, Juicy Game Night. With DreamHack Atlanta tickets up for grab, both her and her husband Argenrost had entered the bracket for Mortal Kombat XL—just five days after Legi0n had given birth to her daughter Cereza.

She was able to best her own husband, who came in third place, before taking on KingKai and coming away with two DreamHack tickets and a $28 cash prize to boot.

Pictures of her holding her newborn mid-set posted by her husband went viral on X with over 27,000 likes, and the Juicy Game Night X account posted a top three picture with the caption "Babality," referencing a specific Mortal Kombat Fatality style.

Following the event, Legi0n wrote on X: "So glad that we honestly left the house and did this," and that despite "hormones and trauma related to our older daughter's death/the surgery," she was "so grateful to make it out."

Legi0n added: "Never want to stop doing things that I love, just need to adjust my life accordingly for our younger daughter." In another post, she wrote "I only won because she coached me mid set. Sending our daughter to DreamHack."

It's stuff like this that reminds me why I have such a soft spot for the FGC, and what keeps me showing up to my own locals and tournaments across the country even when I'm not actively competing. Despite the Saudi government's sportswashing attempts via the Esports World Cup and its takeover of EVO, it'll forever be grassroots events like these that keep the community as bright and welcoming as it is.

NetherRealm audio director Dan Forden has left the studio after 15 years, where he's worked since its founding in April 2010—although since NetherRealm was a rebadged Midway Chicago, it's perhaps more accurate to say that he's left after 36 years. Forden's first game credit, for sound, is on the 1989 Midway arcade basketball game Arch Rivals. He's most famous for being the voice (and face) of one of the most random but iconic soundbites in gaming history: yelling "Toasty!" when you uppercut someone in Mortal Kombat.

"Wednesday was my last day at Netherrealm. We made a lot of fun stuff over the years. I’m really proud of what we accomplished as well as how much fun we had making that stuff," Forden wrote in a farewell post on Instagram.

Forden was part of the tiny team that created the original Mortal Kombat in 1992, alongside designers Ed Boon and John Tobias and artist John Vogel. When they set to work on Mortal Kombat 2, Foden was again responsible for the game's sound and music, and credits Boon with suggesting they add an image of him appearing in the corner and saying "Toasty!" as an inside joke; the catchphrase started as a taunt when the two of them were working on Midway football game Super High Impact.

"I'd say 'I predict toast,' like 'you're toast,' and somehow that turned into "I predict toasty," Forden explained in a behind-the-scenes interview. When someone at the studio said they should "put some of that weird stuff you say into the games," Boon ran with it.

"Toasty!" returned in Mortal Kombat 3 (where it morphed into "Crispy!" in a particular Scorpion fatality), and Mortal Kombat 4, and even the modern 3D games from NetherRealm.

Forden may have left NetherRealm, but his presence remains in some form at the studio—his Instagram post shows a sticker of his MK3-era self stuck on a bathroom mirror.

"I love the little touches that people left around the studio like this little Toasty homage on the bathroom mirror," he wrote. "There are so many smart, talented people there—look for more great things to emerge over the next several years. …

"I wouldn’t have lasted 37 years in the industry if fans weren’t out there playing the games we made. Thanks to all of you for supporting what we’ve done. Live long and… Toasty!"

2XKO's closed beta seems to be going pretty well, with the tag fighter throwing open the doors to the masses on October 7. Despite executive producer Tom Cannon saying in July that "our goal is to keep the game up, online, and available" from the closed beta's launch, it seems that Riot needs just a few days to get everything straightened out.

A post on the 2XKO X account reads: "We need a little more time to get early access up and running, so we'll be shutting down closed beta a few days early on Oct 3 @ 9pm PT." Servers will be back up and running in time for the early access launch on October 7 at 8am PT/11am ET/4pm BST.

Riot says that offline mode will still work, so players should still be able to hit the lab, play local multiplayer, and face off against CPUs. Three-and-a-half days to do some tinkering behind the scenes is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially when I think about other fighting games who took their betas offline and straight-up vanished for a year—looking at you, Multiversus.

The downtime news was released alongside a trailer for 2XKO's tenth champion, verifiable League mascot Teemo. And as someone who doesn't play the MOBA, I finally understand all of the Teemo hate.

Riot has really leaned into the gremlin vibes here, with Teemo being an all-out terror as both a zoner and a trap character, using his signature blow darts and mushrooms to create space while also laying down grass patches that he can quickly teleport to for some solid mixups.

The trailer is steeped in self-awareness in the best possible way. Halfway through sees a fake Twitch-like chat appear with comments like "2XKO SAVED," "this game is cooked" and various iterations of cringe/based. Riot knows of Teemo's crimes, and is doing everything it can to lean into that.

It even ends with a reference to Evo Moment 37—one of the most iconic FGC moments that continues to haunt Justin Wong over 20 years later—which, if I wasn't already sold on the sheer tomfoolery Teemo had been displaying in the two minutes prior to this, I certainly am now.

I have been excited for very few videogames the way I'm excited for Absolum. Guard Crush won my heart when it dropped Streets of Rage 4, a beat 'em up so fluid and skill-expressive it approaches the zenith of the genre, and so I was floored when I tried Absolum during Steam Next Fest earlier this year and felt it had the potential to be even better.

Part of that I attribute to its original fantasy world where it feels like the devs, unshackled by the aesthetic constraints of a 20-year-old series, were able to make something far more grandiose than grimy streetfights. Who better, then, to bang out the soundtrack than Yuka Kitamura, mastermind behind the tunes of Elden Ring and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice?

A studio recording was revealed during today's PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct, interspersed with some new clips of the game's combat. It's all snarling strings and portentous vocal melodies, and given that it's performed by a live orchestra, it's a level of production value the sidescrolling beat 'em up is treated to less often than I'd like. Stylistically, it's perfect for what you'd expect from musical backing in a fantasy videogame.

The boss footage is no slouch either, and only makes me more impatient to finally get my hands on this thing. Time will tell if Absolum can pave a way forward for the venerable genre, but the stage is certainly set for the game to dazzle when it launches October 9.

If Absolum has caught your eye, you can check the demo out or wishlist the game on Steam.

Check out every game, trailer, and announcement in the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct.

There's still not a whole lot we know about the upcoming Virtua Fighter, headed up by Yakuza studio Ryu Ga Gotoku… and even after a 50-minute showing at Tokyo Game Show this week, that remains true.

But hey, we did get a look at a brand-new battle system that'll be in the game, which plans to stand alongside Virtua Fighter's traditional style as its own thing. Called Uprising, it seems like RGG Studio's attempt at delving into a more modern fighting game formula with "dynamic momentum-shifting opportunities," according to the presentation.

These opportunities come in the form of new mechanics Flowguard, Break and Rush, and the Stunner and Stun Combo systems. The first is a "new defensive system designed with stylish movements," which RGG Studio says "expands options and introduces fresh dynamics for offense and defense beyond traditional guarding."

Flowguard's defensive options are closely tied to Break and Rush, which seems to be the main selling point behind Uprising. It's essentially a part break system—repeatedly damaging the same body parts—like the head, body, and legs—will eventually open up huge vulnerabilities, allowing the attacker to gain access to "powerful offensive opportunities."

Damage to body parts even persists across rounds, marked by glowing red spots on the opponent. It should make for some really interesting strategic gameplay choices across matches, which is the thing I'm most interested in.

The last system, Stunner and Stun Combo, is said to be more approachable for new players with it introducing a new combo system which allows players to chain attacks from a stun. Traditional combos will still exist in Uprising, but their appearance will be less frequent.

Official English slides from the New VIRTUA FIGHTER Project livestream from Tokyo Game Show 2025 ー 2 Battle Rules (Standard/Uprising) | New Battle System Explanations: Flowguard, Break & Rush, Stunner & Combo from r/virtuafighter

The presentation wraps up with a 20-second teaser that honestly shows, well, a big loada nothing. We get some pretty shots of streetside restaurants and a mysterious figure walking along the alleyways. That's it, that's the whole teaser.

It's safe to say that the 50-minute presentation has slowed down the hype train a tad. "I don't get why [RGG] didn't do the TGA announcement and then disappear for one or two years, like a normal studio would do," a Reddit commenter lamented. "They clearly have nothing to show yet but keep doing these presentations with stuff everyone already knows."

Another commenter wrote, "This was like students showing their group project that they couldn't finish on time." As another bluntly put it: "How to kill hype and momentum 101."

I mean yeah, it was certainly light in the information department. It does feel a little odd to be going over battle systems before we even have a game name—RGG Studio is still working under the moniker New Virtua Fighter Project—and I agree that I'd rather see the game go into hiding and then come out swinging with tons of new information when it has a lot more meat on the bone.

Maybe the rather lacklustre feedback to this presentation will be the convincing the studio needs to lock in away from our judgemental gazes.

It's been almost six years and one name change, but 2XKO (formerly Project L) finally opened its doors as part of a closed beta earlier this month. If you've been one of the unlucky folk begging all your mates for an invite code to no avail, don't fret: the tag fighter is throwing open the gate to all players much sooner than I expected.

Riot just revealed that 2XKO will officially enter early access on October 7. No more closed beta, no more invite codes. The bad news is that it's still a PC-only deal—despite our PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S pals being included back in the 2024 beta, they're still being left out of the main event for now. There's no word on when the game'll go multi-platform just yet, unfortunately.

But for those of us on PC, early access marks the start of 'Season 0' as well as the debut of 2XKO's 10th champion, which Riot is still keeping firmly under wraps. Well, it's trying anyway. A datamine of the game's upcoming battle pass included a graphic of Braum, Yasuo, and Darius sporting new costumes alongside a picture of rat mascot Teemo. The latter of whom isn't exactly in the game yet.

The official 2XKO X account responded to the datamine with a cheeky "how'd that get in there," which doesn't exactly smack of denial. Riot is keeping mum on the whole thing right now, but whoever it is will be playable right from the early access launch.

Riot also says that anything obtained during early access—like cosmetics, champs, and mastery rewards—will carry over when the full game launches at some point in the future. Looking to 2026, Riot says the next year will see five additional seasons, each one coming with a new champion and cosmetic rewards. That should hopefully fill out the roster quite nicely—for a tag fighter, I'd consider 2XKO to be a little on the thin side right now when it comes to character numbers.

And of course it's a fighting game, which means Riot is already gearing up to turn it into an all-out competitive spectacle. 2XKO will debut at EVO France—taking place just a few days after early access launch—with Riot chucking a little extra money into the prize pots across 22 upcoming tournaments.

I appreciate the developer's emphasis on the tournaments still being community-led while plumping the prize pot from afar, especially in the wake of sportswashing concerns with the Esports World Cup and the recent takeover of EVO by the Saudi Arabia city of Qiddiya. I think it's the right balance, one I hope Riot continues to take as 2XKO makes the tournament circuit rounds.

Leaks are part and parcel of a videogame's development at this point. Do I agree with that? Of course not, but you'd be hard pressed to find a big game that hasn't sprung a little leak here and there at some point. Sometimes it's dataminers getting their hands on a beta, or in more unfortunate cases (like GTA 6), it's a big ol' hack job.

Sometimes, though, the call comes from inside the house. That's exactly what happened in the case of 2XKO—Riot's upcoming League of Legends tag fighter—when an unannounced character showed up on the developer's goddamn support page of all places.

Could be fake but the art style is so distinctive 2xko that I fell for it. from r/2XKO

Big robot lad Blitzcrank was spotted as the featured mascot for the 2XKO support on Riot's site earlier this week, with the art style most definitely fitting in with the game.

Speculation started to whip up soon after, and the support site graphic was quickly swapped out for one of Jinx instead. The damage was already done, though, and 2XKO Editor-in-Chief Ben Forbes retweeted this 2022 post from the Street Fighter 6 account: "As residents of Metro City, we've all seen things we weren't supposed to see, but we're all in this together. We appreciate all the positive reactions. Thank you for the support!"

That statement came after the entire roster for Street Fighter 6 was leaked, making it pretty clear at this point that Blitzcrank's appearance was an accident. Soon after, the 2XKO account essentially threw its hands up and said "oopsie!" when it posted: "commencing accidental leak protocol," adding: "Blitzcrank is 2XKO's ninth champion, available in closed beta. Full reveal Sept 2".

I gotta say, I appreciate Riot coming out and saying it. I suppose there wasn't exactly much to lose—it's only one fighter, it was the developer's own fault, and there was little point in hiding it at that point. Considering Blitzcrank is going to be part of the launch roster anyway, it seems the secret spilt only a few days early, too.

I'm not much of a League player, but I do love a fighting game, and I'm excited to learn more about Blitzcrank. I don't usually gravitate towards big bodies in fighters, but I do enjoy seeing what they can do, and with a bunch of players hoping that he's a grappler, I'm eagerly anticipating Riot's deep dive into his kit.

Fighting games are a full-blown sensory experience: From feeling the rap of buttons under your fingers as you execute your bread-and-butter combo, to the explosive visual effects that accompany counter hits and special attacks, to the weighty audial blast of every punch and kick—all soundtracked to some of the hottest music in videogames.

Like I was saying when talking about rock music in videogames a few weeks ago, the soundtracks we hear are a critical part of how games spin stories. They can prime our emotions before we've even heard any dialogue or seen any text—maybe soft violins ease us into a sad scene, or shrill plucked strings alert us to incoming danger.

Fighters are a little different, though. Sure we have story modes and snippets of lore here and there, but ultimately every battle is taking place in a vacuum. Maybe you're practicing some new moves against a CPU, or more often than not putting your ego on the line to go against a real-life opponent. Maybe that's online, at your locals, or maybe even on the big stage at a tournament.

It's a concept stripped down to its most fundamental parts. No cutscenes to clue you in, no dialogue trees to alter the course. It's just you, one other person, and a mental encyclopaedia of frame data, punishments, and half a dozen combo routes. That's why audio and presentation is so important—visually it has to look exciting while cleanly conveying every hit, which means most of the theatrics end up tucked into every corner of its sound design.

I'm currently at VSFighting in Birmingham, the UK's primo major fighting game tournament. One of my favourite parts about getting to attend is how electrifying the atmosphere is when you're all piled into an auditorium to watch the final eight players duke it out for victory all while the game's sound is fit to burst out of the speakers.

Players will chant along to voice lines, yell "Ey, ey, ey, eyyy!" to every hit in a combo, and sing along to some of their favourite stings in the best fighting game soundtracks. Take Street Fighter 6 and Reinvent the Game. It's the song that plays in the character select screen, before each fighter gets to play up to the camera in a little cutscene. You'll almost definitely find everybody chanting along to "Yeah, yeah!" as a way to get the pre-match hype kickstarted.

I'll also forever have fond memories of Tekken 7's Infinite Azure—a stage that got counterpicked a whole bunch back when the game was current—and the final round theme Moonsiders 2nd. Popular commentator Tasty Steve almost couldn't resist mouthing along to the beat drop, and almost every time I hear the song it's accompanied by him yelling "Bwahm bwahm bwahm bwahm BWAAGH!" Listen to it, you'll see exactly what I mean.

Songs in fighting games aren't just there to serve whoever's fighting their way to victory. It also serves the audience watching, either at home or alongside those taking to the main stage. Whether you're going for character themes like Granblue or Street Fighter, or dedicating multiple tracks to each stage like Tekken, ultimately the goal is the same: get players battle-ready, and let viewers know they're in for a real good fight.

It's a collective experience, one that feels wholly unique to fighting games. From high-octane tracks that pull from EDM, hip-hop, and hardcore influences, to more atmospheric tracks that lean more trance, industrial, and ambient genres. It's music so good that people dedicate entire DJ sets to it—the Tekken World Tour 2023 finals enlisted DJ and fighting game composer Mifumei to spin some discs, and it went hard.

Here are some of my absolute favourite fighting game tracks (with a little help from all my lovely FGC pals) you should be adding to your gym, work, and cleaning playlist. Hell, whatever really. Add 'em to your sleep playlist. I also promise to not make it entirely Tekken, as this list could absolutely be entirely composed of tracks from the series. They're just that good.

Moonsiders 2nd. Popular commentator Tasty Steve almost couldn't resist mouthing along to the beat drop, and almost every time I hear the song it's accompanied by him yelling "Bwahm bwahm bwahm bwahm BWAAGH!" Listen to it, you'll see exactly what I mean.

Songs in fighting games aren't just there to serve whoever's fighting their way to victory. It also serves the audience watching, either at home or alongside those taking to the main stage. Whether you're going for character themes like Granblue or Street Fighter, or dedicating multiple tracks to each stage like Tekken, ultimately the goal is the same: get players battle-ready, and let viewers know they're in for a real good fight.

It's a collective experience, one that feels wholly unique to fighting games. From high-octane tracks that pull from EDM, hip-hop, and hardcore influences, to more atmospheric tracks that lean more trance, industrial, and ambient genres. It's music so good that people dedicate entire DJ sets to it—the Tekken World Tour 2023 finals enlisted DJ and fighting game composer Mifumei to spin some discs, and it went hard.

Here are some of my absolute favourite fighting game tracks (with a little help from all my lovely FGC pals) you should be adding to your gym, work, and cleaning playlist. Hell, whatever really. Add 'em to your sleep playlist. I also promise to not make it entirely Tekken, as this list could absolutely be entirely composed of tracks from the series. They're just that good.

Funky

• Tekken 8 – Twilight Party Cruise (Climax)
• Dragon Ball Z Budokai 2 – Character Select
• Tekken 6 – Karma (Electric Fountain)
• Lethal League Blaze – Ain't Nothin' Like a Funky Beat
• The King of Fighters '97 – Cool Jam ~Stormy Saxophone 3~

Epic

• Killer Instinct (2013) – The Instinct
• Mortal Kombat – Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)
• Street Fighter 6 – The Plunderer (JP's Theme)
• Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising – Parade's Lust
• Dragon Ball FighterZ - Broly's Theme

Chill

• Tekken 4 – Authentic Sky
• Ultra Street Fighter 4 – Cosmic Elevator
• Skullgirls – Pick of the Litter
• Street Fighter 5 – Theme of Karin Kanzuki
• Melty Blood: Type Lumina – Magician's Night EX

Everyone loves a good rivalry, and Tekken fans have been eating good for a while thanks to Korean player (and long-time Tekken veteran) Knee, as well as Pakistani pro Arslan Ash, who bulldozed onto the scene in 2019 and has been dominating a whole host of fighting game tournaments since.

Things between the two have been getting especially heated thanks to debate around Knee's main character, Bryan. Arslan Ash has been putting a whole lotta energy into some top-tier rage baiting, telling anyone who'll listen that Bryan is one of the strongest characters in the game, which has successfully rubbed Knee the wrong way.

The whole thing hasn't been helped by Knee retweeting an International Esports Foundation ban Arslan Ash recently faced around failing a drug test for anabolic steroid use—something that would ultimately have no sway on his performance in a videogame, but saw him face a two-year ban from IESF-sanctioned events from April 2023 to April 2025 anyway.

It's certainly been veering into proper beef territory (one may even argue drama) at this point, and that hasn't gone unnoticed by both the FGC and the Esports World Cup.

Quick note that I certainly have my thoughts on the EWC—I'm not exactly a fan of a sportwashing event run by a government with some very questionable stances on women and LGBTQ+ rights and won't be supporting it this year—which perhaps makes it even easier to clown on this bizarrely… gooey(?) sticky(?) poster trying its darndest to showcase Tekken's hottest rivalries of this generation.

It shows Knee on the left and Arslan on the right, large shadowy faces on either side. Cool! Pretty neat way to display the rivalry and advertise the tournament. Except it then also has the two walking away from each other while being held together by… an unknown substance.

I don't want to say what I think it looks like, but I'll let this Reddit comment do it for me: "The jizz walk in the middle has no need to be there." As another comment put it, "They look like they had been stuck together for an entire episode and must now work together to defeat their enemies and at the end of the episode, they free themselves and learn a valuable lesson or something."

I can count maybe half a dozen less sticky ways to convey the drama, personally. I do quite like leaning into player rivalries though, and I hope we get to see more glimpses of it at other tournaments in the future.

Tag fighters are back, baby. Or at least they're going to be back. At some point. After a verifiable dearth of the things for a good long while, Riot came out swinging in February 2024 by renaming Project L to the still-questionable 2XKO and revealing that it was going to be a 2v2 dukeout.

But just like buses, bad things, good things, and celebrity deaths, it turns out tag fighters also come in threes: Summer Game Fest saw the reveal of InvincibleVS—from a brand-new studio formed out of a lotta Killer Instinct folk—and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls from veteran 2D fighter studio Arc System Works, the latter of which is going extra balls-to-the-wall by making its game a freakin' 4v4. That's a lot of characters to lab.

Are any of these actually out and playable yet? No (though 2XKO is almost there) but it does give fighting game fans a whole lot to be excited about. The sudden uptick hasn't gone unnoticed by the FGC either, and IGN recently asked 2XKO lead Alex Jaffe what he thought about the sudden resurgence. Jaffe joked that the game was already "the old new kid on the block" despite not even being released yet.

"Honestly, it's exciting in a real way, because everybody on this team loves tag fighters, and there were a real jerk of options for a while," He added. "And we're making this game because we think that this is one of the most mind-meltingly enjoyable experiences you could have on planet Earth.

"And so we're genuinely psyched that there are more options out there and that there are going to be more people playing tag fighters on account of multiple games coming out. And it's really cool just seeing them, everyone's taking very different takes on them."

Jaffe, who was at EVO alongside a playable version of 2XKO, even managed to find a little bit of time to sniff out the competition.

"The Tōkon folks were super nice and welcomed us in to play this morning," he said, noting that he had "a great time." Jaffe was also quick to note: "The game's very different than ours. The pacing is different. The way team play works is different."

That doesn't particularly surprise me. Like I said, 2XKO works in teams of two while Tōkon has decided to double its team size in comparison. That's gonna create some pretty different pacing—how much health everyone has, how long rounds take, strategy and synergy—I would have been more surprised if the two were identical.

Continuing his diplomacy, Jaffe said "I think there's room to enjoy both of them, or just different audiences that will like different ones. So I feel great about that. I haven't got to play Invincible. Yeah, super excited to play that."

Now I'm not much of a League of Legends or superhero girlie, but I'm still pretty damn excited to dive into a new generation of tag fighters. I'm sure for some it might even be their first time giving the genre a whirl, and Jaffe seems jazzed about that possibility.

"I think it's inevitably going to bring a lot of people into this kind of peak experience," he said. "So we're excited, and we want people to play our game, and enjoy, and in general, to play tag games to enjoy them."

Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon promises NetherRealm is "still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game" after surpassing six million sales… despite officially ending major support for it nearly three months ago.

Mortal Kombat 1's most recent sales announcement puts it ahead of both Street Fighter 6—which reported five million sales two months ago—and Tekken 8, which hit a three million sales milestone five months ago.

It makes sense that it's the most popular of the three. Mortal Kombat has always attracted a larger and more casual audience than its competition—not to say there isn't a competitive scene, there certainly is—and has the numbers to back that up. It's still significantly less than previous entry Mortal Kombat 11, however, which managed to shift over 15 million copies by 2022.

You'd think as a result that'd mean a pretty extensive support window before wrapping things up, but it's pretty common for NetherRealm to pack its bags around 12 months after launching its fighting games. For comparison, Street Fighter 5 saw six years of support, while Tekken 7 had four years of major updates.

Even Mortal Kombat 1's predecessor lasted longer, going two years before NetherRealm announced on X that it was moving onto the next project and ceasing major support. That was considered short by some and, when asked about it during a Q&A at the end of 2022, Boon pointed out that Mortal Kombat 11 was the longest NetherRealm had ever supported a game before assuring fans that the "next game should be even longer".

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case: Mortal Kombat 1 lasted just under 21 months before NetherRealm dropped the news that it was no longer pumping out any new DLC characters or story chapter updates.

It's still working away at balance tweaks here and there, though, which Boon was keen to remind folk about in his latest post. "With over 6.2 million games sold, we're still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game," he wrote before sharing the game's most recent patch notes in both video and text form.

"But we still want to hear from you," he continued before asking: "What four fighters do you feel need buffs the most? What four fighters do you feel need buffs the least?" Boon also polled players on whether they preferred multiple smaller packs of DLC characters or fewer larger packs.

It's nice that Boon still seems committed to pushing Mortal Kombat 1 and improving it, but a quick scroll through the comments paint a picture of a fanbase largely disappointed with the direction it took and the broken promise of an extended support cycle.

Now do I think that fighting games should be spending half a decade crapping out DLC fighter after DLC fighter? Not especially, though I'll take it over some of the more questionable paid add-ons—coughcough, Tekken 7 frame date, coughcough—but clearly the desire was there to see NetherRealm continue to build on MK1. Maybe there's hope for MK2, eh?