Why You Should Be Excited For The New Virtua Fighter (2025)

A new Virtua Fighter title has been teased at CES 2025. While the trailer didn’t have true in-game footage, it provided proof of concept of what Virtua Fighter 6 may be like. It had a lot of heavy hits and great use of blocking, which are staples of the series. While it isn’t always the most exciting gameplay to watch as an audience, the series is extremely fun for die-hard fighting game fans.

While Virtua Fighter was one of the main pillars of 3D fighting games, a new title hasn’t been released since 2006. While many updates of Virtua Fighter 5 have appeared, including Final Showdown, Ultimate Showdown, and soon R.E.V.O., they were all still the same core game. Several main characters did appear in Dead or Alive 5, with some fans often joking that that game is the true next Virtua Fighter. But it had so many more systems that superseded what many fans expected.

Virtua Fighter Is About Fundamentals And Not Spectacle

Mind Games Trump Combos And Poking

As seen in the pre-development trailer, most of Akira’s moves are simply basic punches, kicks, and blocks. These moves are further divided into high, medium, and low hits. Instead of multiple strikes, each individual attack in Virtua Fighter hits hard. This is exemplified when the first player slams the opponent into a few wooden boxes and deals damage to over 50% of their life bar.

Using just the right moves in Virtua Fighter is crucial, often baiting the enemy into making a mistake and punishing it with the right response. Using the wrong attack and missing will likely result in losing the round, which strongly discourages button mashing. While combos exist, they are limited to three or four hits. Contrast this to something like Street Fighter and Tekken, which can showcase long combo strings or heavy reliance on flashy character special moves.

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Virtua Fighter is often directly compared to Tekken as two of the earliest 3D fighting game franchises, but both games have very different principles. Being outright defensive and only occasionally poking foe works well in the latter. Additionally, many Tekken fighters have hard counter-picks, with some high-level players abandoning their main character if it just means winning. However, with Virtua Fighter, the balanced roster results in no clear advantages, and every contender is viable.

Virtua Fighter Characters Surprisingly Fit Into Dead Or Alive 5

Both Series Have Similarities

Surprisingly, several Virtua Fighter characters appeared in Dead or Alive 5 and its updates. This began with Akira Yuki, Pai Chan, and Sarah Bryant appearing in the base game and then Jackie Bryant being added to DOA5: Ultimate. Team Ninja wasn’t working overtime to cram in several misaligned characters. Instead, the two games share a similar foundation, though with additional systems that make them different.

Both Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive are strongly about mind games and tricking the enemy. But, with the latter, this came from a more defensive place to maneuver out of a bad situation. Players could often wind up in a critical stagger and be unable to respond. However, inputting the correct defensive hold or “sabaki” could allow escaping or even counter combos.

The main difference is that Dead or Alive has much more air time than Virtua Fighter. A few of the characters, namely staple ninjas like Kasumi and Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, might actively be jumping for certain attacks. But, in general, there also tend to be lots of juggles or otherwise preventing the enemy from hitting the ground.

Still, both dedicated fans of Dead or Alive and those wanting more balance from Tekken should be on the watch for more Virtua Fighter news. While the real game footage likely will not match the CES 2025 trailer, it should at least have some remnants in the final design. Plus, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio might add a little spin from Like A Dragon or Judgment.

Why You Should Be Excited For The New Virtua Fighter (2)

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Virtua Fighter 6

Fighting

Developer(s)
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher(s)
Sega
Why You Should Be Excited For The New Virtua Fighter (2025)

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