Virtua Fighter may soon be punching its way back into the public eye. Justin Scarpone, Sega’s global head of transmedia, casually dropped the news about a new game in the franchise during an interview with VGC. “We have a suite of titles in development right now that fall into that legacy bucket, which we announced last year at The Game Awards,” he said. “Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and we have another Virtua Fighter being developed. And so all that’s very exciting.”
Exciting indeed. Most of those titles were indeed showcased during The Game Awards as part of a new era for Sega, but Scarpone’s mention of Virtua Fighter is a new revelation. The last numbered entry in the series was Virtua Fighter 5 all the way back in 2006. That’s not to say the fighting game franchise has been static since then; there have been riffs and redos such as Virtual Fighter 5: Final Showdown in 2015 and 2021’s Virtua Fighter Ultimate Showdown. But it has been nearly 20 years since fans have gotten an all new game.
Beyond this offhand confirmation that Sega is working on a follow-up, we know nothing about what the future might hold for a possible Virtua Fighter 6. It seems likely that Akira Yuki and other familiar faces will return, but anything’s possible for the characters and mechanics.