Sega announces new fighting game revival and maybe a new Yakuza

13 Dec

Sega announces new fighting game revival and maybe a new Yakuza

Virtua Fighter Akira in shadows — Virtua Fighter protagonist Akira looks like a completely different character in the new game (Sega)

The Game Awards 2024 has revealed two new projects from the Yakuza devs, including a proper revival of Sega’s premier fighting game series.

During last year’s The Game Awards, Sega announced not one, not two, but five revivals of long dormant IPs, including Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi. Since then, though, the publisher’s been awfully quiet about them.

You might’ve thought an update at The Game Awards 2024 would’ve been in order but, unfortunately, that was not the case. But Sega still had more than one announcement up its sleeve.

The announcements included the return of yet another classic franchise, with Sega set to challenge Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 with a brand new Virtua Fighter game.

What is Virtua Fighter?

Much like Tekken, Virtua Fighter is a series of 3D fighting games that used to populate arcades before making the jump to home consoles. In fact, it was the first of its kind and, at the time, the most realistic portrayal of a human ever in 3D (Virtua Fighter designer Seiichi Ishii later went on to direct the first Tekken).

Although it persisted into the 2000s, Virtua Fighter eventually fell out of fashion, although it has popped up in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series more than once. With fighting games growing in popularity in recent years, though, there was some hope Virtua Fighter would make a comeback.

Virtua Fighter 5 did see an updated re-release in 2021, with a PC port dropping in Janaury 2025, and Sega suggested last year it was considering a full revival. Now, hopeful fans have been rewarded with an entirely new entry that, perhaps appropriately, is being helmed by Yakuza/Like A Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, which already handled the updated Virtua Fighter 5.

When is the new Virtua Fighter being released?

Details are unsurprisingly slim, with no mention of a release date whatsoever. The brief teaser does show off a radically redesigned Akira (the Virtua Fighter equivalent of Street Fighter’s Ryu) fighting someone who looks exactly like Sarah Bryant, another series regular.

A separate Virtua Fighter showcase, however, refers to her as Stella, suggesting she’s either an entirely new character or the game is serving as a full reboot of the series.

While there’s little else to go on, everything so far points to it being precisely what fans want, with the gameplay promising a return to Virtua Fighter’s more grounded martial arts, compared to Street Fighter and Tekken’s more fantastical combat.

This isn’t the only game Ryu Ga Gotoku is working on either. Aside from a new Yakuza pirate spin-off due in February 2025, the studio’s other Game Awards announcement was something currently titled Project Century.

What is Project Century?

At first glance, we assumed this was another Yakuza spin-off, albeit one set in 1915, but there’s no hint of any of the goofier elements the series is famous for.

Project Century is presented as a gritty drama, with the 3D brawler combat depicted in a more grounded and bloody manner and the protagonist most definitely killing some of the enemies.

For now, it seems to be something entirely separate from the Yakuza series, though that may change once Sega settles on a proper name for it. Like Virtua Fighter, it too lacks any sort of release window.

Naturally, Sega also had something Sonic related to tease. Not the eventual Sonic Frontiers sequel, but another kart racer titled Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. Something leaker Pyoro (who has accurately predicted Nintendo related announcements in the past) appeared to tease beforehand.

Ironically, Sonic doesn’t even appear in the teaser, with edgy rival, and upcoming movie star, Shadow hogging the spotlight as he drives his race car into a glowing portal.

Sega says the new racer will have ‘a distinct racing mechanic that promises to transport Sonic racing fans into a new dimension’ whatever that means. Given the title though, we hope and suspect this will be a crossover game like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and feature characters from other Sega properties.

While it wasn’t mentioned during The Game Awards itself, Sega is also keen to let fans know that DLC for Sonic X Shadow Generations is now available, adding a new Shibuya (and area in Tokyo) based level for Shadow, inspired by the upcoming movie. It even gives Shadow the voice of Keanu Reeves.