Major fighting game tournament draws massive crowd

Evo, the worlds most popular fighting game tournament, returned to in-person events for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Evo 2022 held its first in-person event since the COVID-19 outbreak this past weekend. Returning to its home at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada, Evo features top players of a wide number of fighting games, such as Street Fighter V, Guilty Gear: Strive, and Tekken 7.

Evo, short for Evolution Champion Series, has historically been the largest fighting game tournament in the world. From humble beginnings as a small sub-100 tournament in California, Evo now hosts hundreds of thousands of players and viewers both in-person and online.

Over the weekend, competitors flew in from all over the world to compete in nine games — Street Fighter V, Guilty Gear: Strive, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate, Tekken 7, The King of Fighters XV, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Granblue Fantasy Versus, and Skullgirls: 2nd Encore.

Evo is the grandest stage in fighting games, with players flying in worldwide to compete. Picture: Getty Images

Players can register and compete in a series of rounds for huge cash prizes, as well as cementing their legacy as top players. In addition to cash prizes, trophies and medals, players who succeed at Evo often find themselves able to land lucrative sponsorship opportunities with major gaming, tech and snack brands, such as Red Bull and Logitech.

In addition to the main show of pro players competing, game development companies often showcase upcoming updates or details about new unreleased games. This weekend saw reveals for two Street Fighter 6 characters in Kimberly and Juri, while Guilty Gear saw an announcement of its Season 2 DLC, with the first character being fan-favourite Bridget.

Two characters were announced for the upcoming Street Fighter 6 — Juri and Kimberly. Picture: Capcom

Evo also has a Japanese tournament, called Evo Japan, which runs in the spring in Tokyo. Fighting games have a strong foothold in Japan, with many professional players making the trip to the United States for the main event — and even taking home first place, such as Kawano winning Street Fighter 5 this year.

Prize pools can fluctuate between tournaments. The largest prize pool was in Evo 2015, with eight players splitting over $100k AUD. Multiversus, an upcoming fighter featuring characters such as LeBron James and Batman, held its first tournament with a set prize pool of $144k AUD.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.