Welcome to the third and final day of coverage for EVO Japan 2025. Like last year’s, this post rounds up all the other companies’ arcade-adjacent happenings that were going on at the event (and have yet another reveal to mention here); whilst exA-Arcadia once again had the most new arcade game reveals, that doesn’t mean nobody else had anything going on, whether for arcades proper or simply major games that started off in this space. The former will be our main focus here, however.
If you missed the previous two days of EVO Japan 2025 coverage, find them here and here. Thanks to Ted for sourcing all the non-exA information on this one.
Bandai Namco
Last year, Bandai Namco gave people a little bit of a surprise with a sort-of arcade edition of Tekken 8, using their Grigio cabinets running the Steam release. That has since been installed at a select few Namco locations, whilst in the meantime, the company’s main arcade battler focus has been their more successful Gundam Extreme VS (EXVS) games, which remain top earners for most in Japan. The latest edition of these, EXVS 2 Infinite Boost, was revealed and location tested under tight secrecy earlier this year (there seemed to be a photo ban in effect), and here it made a full debut on its very own demo booth.
Changes to this version of the game include a remapping of its pad controls, fresh key artwork + music, and a whole host of new Gundam content. Could this ever properly come out West? It seems more likely than before, with their Japanese games like Taiko no Tatsujin finally releasing here and four EXVS cabinets even exclusively appearing at the Bandai Namco Cross Store in New York City… but who knows. Also, to give the current OverBoost edition of EXVS a send off of sorts and celebrate the 15th anniversary of the series, Bandai Namco additionally held an “Extreme Encore” for that version, which you can find here.
Tekken 8 naturally also had plenty going on at the show, with Knee taking home the win in its grand finals.Â
Sega
After a while shying away from fighting games, Sega are back on the warpath in Japan with some new efforts for the title that stuck their flag in the ground of this genre – Virtua Fighter. It would be nice if their other attempts still got some official love too, with Fighting Vipers even having a side event at the show (more on those later), but that ship has sailed, and VF is the king of them after all. It has to be said that these efforts for it are not exactly arcade-centric – they didn’t have any APM3 setups here (that has been getting some new games of late, though few have been fighters), but in terms of their competitive goings-on, it was all Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., the newest Steam version of the arcade game.
The main focus for a lot of fans from their appearance though was of course the new trailer and then Virtua Fighter Direct stream done on the final day, which revealed more about the “New Virtua Fighter Project”, currently in development for home platforms. This is the next evolution of the series, so it is not quite Virtua Fighter 6 proper, but a definite new beginning of sorts. This naming seems to suggest if it were to happen, an actual numbered VF6 would return the series to its true arcade roots – but whether such a thing will happen is a whole other matter entirely… let alone if it would ever come out West.
Also, the new project may look impressive, but perhaps the best thing Sega had for VF was really this fun photo opportunity area đŸ˜€
Taito
Last year at EVO Japan, Taito set up a booth dedicated to Street Fighter 6 Type Arcade, which had recently released at the time. On this occasion it appears they did not have any space on the show floor, but were still very much involved via the presence of their own eSports teams, Arcader and Tradz. These are things that not all companies have, but are definitely some decent ways to keep your name out there when you have less going on. Arcader in particular did a practise stream for Street Fighter 6, whilst the Tradz’s two SF6 players attended too (see if you can spot the cool Space Invaders reference in their logo).
While it’s relevant, it is also worth saying that Taito have even organized their own game tournaments initiative in the recent past – Toushinsai. This flew the flag for competitive arcade gaming in a void left by the old Tougeki championships, running tournaments on not just fighting games but racers, puzzle and rhythm games, for an alternative to the official examples held by the likes of Sega and Konami. However, this has unfortunately gone quiet after its last 2021 edition. These things do cost lots to organize and need the right funding, but it’s a slight shame they haven’t done anything more with it…
The Martial Masters
Now for one of the last two exA-Arcadia announcements. After revealing Spectral Vs. Generation Chaos, they are bringing out yet another collaboration with IGS – this time for The Martial Masters, a revival of their 1999 Hong Kong-film inspired fighter. The original actually released out West via Andamiro back in the day, but it is now returning to the scene thanks to exA as shown in this stream. This is not, however, the bigger final announcement of theirs teased for this final day… stay tuned for that as it’s getting its own post.
Other
Now to give a bit of time to all the smaller scale happenings at EVO Japan 2025, which did not revolve around major new games or the big companies. Even as the show gets slightly more “corporate”, it’s good that they still strive to make space for this sort of thing and offer it a platform.
Of course with fighters, it’s not just about the games, their creators, and the competitive environment – there has to be some focus on the minute things, like parts in your arcade sticks, and Sanwa Denshi are the standard bearers for that. They had a small booth showing off their range here.
Besides the companies, there’s always some space for ‘grassroots’ efforts at an EVO, and the Japanese edition has plenty of side events on more obscure arcade games, both new and old, and the area for these had plenty being ran on arcade cabinets. These included an officially recognized one for obscure fighter Yatagarasu Enter The Eastward, which released just last year on NESiCAxLive:
Elsewhere (as previously mentioned), one of the older games that had an unofficial fan-organized side event was Sega’s Fighting Vipers, similar to last year where it was ran off its ports inside the Yakuza spin-off Judgement. You can find the stream for that below. There used to be many more of them in Japan once, but someone even turned out in cosplay for old fan favorite Honey…
Finally, check out this cute artwork made for The Rumble Fish 2’s side event. I’m sure the fans involved in that were happy to hear about the new Nexus version revealed there đŸ™‚
That it is it now for EVO Japan 2025; if there are any updates soon on the games revealed at this event, be sure to stay tuned to the site and YouTube channel, as they will appear there soon. With it all now wrapped up, what was your favorite fighting game at the event?
