Sega today revealed it’d be releasing a new entry in the Virtua Fighter series, exclusively for the PlayStation 4… well, sort of. Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, a new version of the latest game in the series, is coming to the PS4 on June 1. It’s being rebuilt with a new engine and updated graphics, by the team behind the Yakuza series, no less.
The news was announced by IGN, who add that this is part of Sega’s 60th-anniversary celebrations (wow, we’ve got quite a lot of anniversaries this year). The game has been completely rebuilt, with new music, a new interface, and new cinematics. It’ll also have a new online match system that lets players spectate in real-time. According to IGN, “The private and public lobby system will support up to 16 players, and will include new communications tools like stamps.”
Virtua Fighter 5 is not a new game by any stretch. In fact, it’s almost 15 years old; the original version was released in Japanese arcades in the summer of 2006. Since then the game’s been ported to various consoles, including the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. An updated version called Virtua Fighter 5 R was released in 2008. The very first Virtua Fighter game came to arcades in 1993 and was later ported to consoles and PC (I played it on the latter when I was 8 — Sarah Bryant was my first fighting game main).
A version of the game has actually been available to play, in a sense, on current-generation consoles for quite some time. Another updated version of the game called Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is available to play in the arcades in Yakuza 6, Judgment, and Yakuza: Like a Dragon. So it’s probably not a surprise that Ultimate Showdown is coming from the team at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the same team behind the Yakuza series.
Source: IGN
