Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable 3 News

A ton of news was revealed over this weekend for multiple fighting games. As incredibly coincidental as it all seems, some of it could have been because of the third Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable. The online event sees the producers and directors of various fighting game publishers and developers come together to talk about the successes and strategies of their games. They discuss where the future of the genre may be going, and also speak on more lighthearted topics such as favorite characters and games.

There was some interesting discourse such as whether fighting games could move into the F2P space as many expect Riot Games’ Project L to do. It also seems like Sega may be considering it with the Virtua Fighter series. Some of the more entertaining parts included showing off prized possessions such as rare games and original artwork and designs. Of course, what everyone was excited about was the announcements. Much of them had been revealed already, but we still found out some fun stuff.

The first announcement was from SNK. Although we just saw the release of the first set of DLC characters with Team Garou last week, everyone can now look forward to the fan-favorite (and loathed) Omega Rugal as the next character coming to The King of Fighters XV. He’s going to be added on April 14th as free DLC along with a Boss Challenge mode featuring the character.

Rugal is well known as a typical old-school SNK arcade fighting game boss who is extremely difficult and honestly a little cheap. The new mode is meant to emulate that experience and those who complete it will unlock a special costume for the character, a music track, and a new stage. As much as I loved the game already, this free DLC looks to be a great addition.

From Bandai Namco, there wasn’t anything technically new presented. Instead, they showed off the trailer for the Tekken Bloodline anime that’s coming to Netflix this year. The story fills in the gap between Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 when Jin Kazama has to find and train with his grandfather Heihachi. It’s the biggest gap in the series’ timeline and does feature the beloved and always missed character Jun in the trailer, so I’m sure fans will be intrigued.

Arika announced that on April 1st an updated netcode system is going to be added to Fighting EX Layer Another Dash, the Nintendo Switch port of Fighting EX Layer. What’s worth noting is that the original game on PC and PS4 already had decent rollback netcode implemented, while this port used something different. This update isn’t bringing the rollback netcode from the original platforms, but is being touted as “the next generation of netcode”. They’re considering if they want to add this new netcode to the PC and PS4 versions since it could be multiple times better. Nothing else was shown, but it does sound pretty interesting, to say the least.

Similar to Bandai Namco, the big Arc System Works announcements had come the day before. In their case, they revealed a huge amount of information at the end of the ArcRevo 2021 tournament, including Testament as the new DLC character, alongside new modes. Something new that was announced but not shown was that the starter guide for Testament is now online to give players an idea of how the character plays.

Sega also didn’t have any specific new announcements. Just the day before they announced a costume collaboration between Tekken 7 and their game Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown. It’s unknown how many costumes there will be aside from the Kazuya and Heihachi costumes shown in the trailer, but more information is expected to come soon.

Unsurprisingly, Capcom didn’t have anything new to show either. Street Fighter 6 was just announced a month ago and they’re still holding off on showing much more until the summer. Instead, they briefly went over the upcoming Capcom Fighting Collection and the definitive update coming for Street Fighter V.

I’ve been a big fan of this roundtable event since it began. It’s always fun to see from the perspective of the people behind these games. The announcements and trailers are nice too, even though most had been shown the day prior. There really is a lot to look forward to this year though, and I suspect the next time this event is held there will be plenty of new things to talk about with the fighting game industry. If you want to watch the two-and-a-half-hour roundtable yourself, it can be seen below.