The fighting game community was taken by surprise yesterday afternoon, when the return of the Evo tournament series was announced. Not only was the silence about what lies ahead for the longtime fighting game competition broken, but we also found that Sony Interactive Entertainment and RTS acquired the organization together.
Naturally, this generated a lot of questions among fighting players, especially one that asks about the future of games that are not on Sony consoles – like Super Smash Bros Ultimate. After the announcement, Nintendo released a statement on the subject and, it seems, Smash at Evo still doesn’t look like a lock.
Speaking to IGN, a Nintendo spokesman said the company had taken advantage of Evo’s previous events and wished tournament organizers good luck. “We will continue to evaluate Evo,” said Nintendo, as he looked at the Super Smash Bros. tournament opportunities.
The Super Smash Bros. series had official representation in 10 different Evo events. Starting with Super Smash Bros. Melee in 2007, we would see Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate all gained time in the limelight at each Evo event with only a handful of exceptions.
Between 2010 and 2012, Super Smash Bros. would be absent from the event after Evo 2009, where a Brawl tournament took place, but was not on the official tournament list. Smash came back strong in 2013, however, where Melee was added to the scoresheet through a donation campaign to select the final title of the event.
The interesting thing is that despite the acquisition of Evo by Sony, the event organizers are still open and able to work with games that do not appear on PlayStation consoles. Mark “MarkMan” Julio, head of business development at Evo, assured fans on Twitter yesterday that console exclusivity shouldn’t be as much of an issue as fans initially feared.
“It is also very important to observe. @EVO is still open to all platforms ”, wrote Julio. “The PlayStation and RTS teams are allowing us to continue working with our community to support fighting games.”
Evo is already showing that this statement is true with the official formation of the next Evo Online featuring several games that allow players to play on PC and PlayStation consoles. Although the tournament organization certainly looks open to having Super Smash Bros. in a future event, Nintendo’s initial statement seems less certain that this will materialize.
As it is now, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is probably not in consideration for Evo due to his difficult overall online experience. Once we start seeing a return to offline tournaments, however, the question about Smash’s Evo status will become much more pertinent.
The next Evo Online is scheduled to take place on two weekends: 6 to 8 August and 13 to 15, and admission will be free. Street Fighter 5 Season 5, Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat 11 and Guilty Gear Strive will be part of the official line up and will have open format tournaments.