In recent years, Sega’s Virtua Fighter has been most closely associated with mini-games in the Like a Dragon franchise (aka Yakuza of old), but the iconic fighting game series is poised to take center stage once again.
Image source: SEGA
The head of Sega’s international transmedia department, Justin Scarpone, casually mentioned in an interview with Video Games Chronicle that the company is developing a new part of Virtua Fighter.
«We have a number of projects in development within the [Sega] legacy that we presented at The Game Awards last year: Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi. We are also making a new Virtua Fighter. This is all very cool,” Scarpone said.
Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown
The last numbered game in the series – Virtua Fighter 5 – was released back in 2006, so for fans the long-awaited confirmation of a new part (talks had been going on for several years) became an important event.
After the release of Virtua Fighter 5, only re-releases and interpretations of past games in the series were released (including for arcade machines). The last console release in the franchise was Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown in 2021 on PS4.
Virtua Fighter 3tb Online launched last November in arcades in Japan
Although you might not say so now, Virtua Fighter is considered one of the most important franchises in the history of 3D fighting games. The very first part was a 3D pioneer for its genre.
The original Virtua Fighter debuted in arcades in late 1993. The game’s production was led by game designer Yu Suzuki, known as the creator of Shenmue.