Ever since Sony bought the Evolution Championship Series last year, everyone had expected Sony to make big changes come Evo 2022. And those predictions were correct, as Sony just announced its plans for a revamped Evo, and it might be the best it’s ever been.
Evo will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in Las Vegas during August 5-7. And Sony has a lot in store for fighting game fans and some big changes compared to how things were done before.
Main Titles at Evo 2022
Evo has always held tournaments for the largest fighting games at the time. This year is no exception, as most of the biggest names will be making an unsurprising return.
- Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
- Guilty Gear -Strive-
- Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
- Tekken 7
- The King of Fighters XV
- Melty Blood: Type Lumina
- Dragonball FighterZ
- Granblue Fantasy: Versus
- Skullgirls: 2nd Encore
Some of the titles mentioned above have declined in popularity, such as Street Fighter V. Pulling in barely over a thousand entrants, SFV is in the worst state in terms of player count. Especially when compared to its predecessor’s last year which had over twice the number of entrants.
Guilty Gear Strive is currently leading the pack with over two thousand entries to Evo 2022. These numbers were announced recently by the official Evo Twitter account.
Evo 2022 Tournament Reg:1. GGST – 21612. SFV – 13203. T7 – 12204. KOFXV – 10145. DBFZ – 6366. GBVS – 5287. MK11 – 4648. MBTL – 4119. SG – 295Attending Countries – 63
Top 4 titles featured in the Evo 2022 Arena Finals!
Tickets are available at https://t.co/WgXv1e2fEK.
— EVO (@EVO) July 18, 2022
Sony’s Plans for the Event
Sony is setting up something called PlayStation Tournaments: Evo Lounge which will be the best way to watch everything going on in the event live.
The tournament will have multiple live streams over the weekend with top-of-the-line curated coverage with live bracket updates, interviews with players, and most importantly, reveals from video game developers.
Sony’s plans of turning Evo into a State of Play event, but for fighting games, could turn out great for the eSports scene and the fighting game community (also referred to as the FGC).
Companies like Warner Bros., Capcom, SNK, and Bandai Namco will be mainstays at the event. And might have some more details to share regarding their current games, as well as upcoming titles.
