EVO Japan 2023 Announcements Recap

EVO events have become known for featuring a wonderful mix of high-level gameplay and fun reveals for future fighting game content. While it’s expected that the upcoming EVO 2023 will have even bigger announcements, there was still a lot to get excited about over this past weekend at EVO Japan. I wholeheartedly recommend checking out the fun tournaments on the EVO Twitch page, but let’s focus on the news and trailers from the three-day event.

Starting it all off was a new trailer for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising. We first heard about this sequel a little over two months ago and now we have a trailer that shows off some of the new gameplay mechanics. The end of the trailer also teases the Dragon Knight Siegfried, albeit without gameplay.

What might be even more exciting than a brief reveal of a new character was the equally brief announcement that an online beta will be going live in May. Besides the restriction that it will only be on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 platforms, we don’t know anything else about it yet.

Fans of SNK fighting games might have received the most widespread updates with a single video covering everything they’re working on. Samurai Shodown is still set to be updated with rollback netcode in the Spring. The new Fatal Fury game that was announced at last year’s EVO seemingly revealed three more characters (Terry, Joe, and Andy) as well.

The King of Fighters especially has a lot of content coming up. The King of Fighters XIII Global Match was announced for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, updating the popular entry with rollback netcode. The King of Fighters XV also revealed that Kim Kaphwan will be releasing very soon on April 4th. We also got a brief look at Sylvie Paula Paula. A welcome surprise was the reveal that Goenitz, the final boss from The King of Fighters ’96, will be added as a free update. He’s shown on the same stage that Omega Rugal was in the last season, so he might be added to the Boss Challenge Mode too.

Rounding out the trailers were some for Tekken 8. We were expecting something after the Jun Kazama trailer (soon after the Ling Xiayou trailer), but I’m not sure anyone was expecting two. The first trailer revealed the return of Leroy Smith. Considering how popular he was after debuting in Tekken 7 and that they even put him in the recent Tekken Bloodline anime, this isn’t that surprising of a pick. He looks even more hard-hitting than before and they’re fully leaning into his style this time around by giving him the moniker “Grandmaster of Drip” as well.

Immediately following it was a trailer for Asuka Kazama. This was another expected character due to her popularity and that Jun has her moveset now. Some additions to her moveset are apparent though, further separating her from Jun and giving her some updates to match her new outfit. We don’t know when Tekken 8 is expected to release, but the speed at which these trailers are releasing is pretty crazy. It seems likely that we can expect more from Tekken 8 and other series in a few months at EVO 2023.