A recent rating for an unannounced Virtua Fighter game could point to an imminent revival of Sega’s fighting game series. In March, the Korean Games Administration and Classification Committee ranked Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown for the PlayStation 4, a release that may be linked to Sega’s e-sports ambitions.
According to the classification, identified by Gematsu, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown is also known by another name: Esports Virtua Fighter. In September, Sega launched a project called “Virtua Fighter × esports”, but did not announce a specific game title or platform. Sega said at the time that Virtua Fighter “will be restarted as an esports title to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of SEGA”. A teaser video of the project showed footage from the Virtua Fighter tournaments and ended with a scene from Akira, the face of the fighting game franchise.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown it would be the (somewhat) logical follow-up to the most recent entry in the franchise: Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. This version of the game was released in arcades in 2010 and ported to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012.
In February, Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada said he wanted a Sega representative to come in the next episode of Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable, a YouTube panel that featured Capcom developers, Bandai Namco, Arc System Works, SNK, and Arika. Harada did not explain why he specifically wanted Sega to appear, but he may have an idea of the publisher’s fighting game plans. The organizers of Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable have not announced a date for the third episode of the broadcast.