After an initial launch in the arcades in October 1993,Virtua Fighterwould make its North American console debut on the Sega Saturn on June 19, 2025, and fighting games would never be the same. The legacy ofVirtua Fighterstands shoulder-to-shoulder with pivotal, paradigm-shifting games likeSuper Mario 64orHalf-Life, and that’s without it even being a “full” 3D fighter despite its place as the commonly accepted first 3D fighting game. ButVirtua Fighter’s lasting impact goes beyond its innovations in visuals and instead rests solely on its mechanical complexity and technical precision; two elements that should serve as the foundation of both the fighting game genre and the resurgence of theVirtua Fighterfranchise.
At the time of its release,Virtua Fighterwowed players thanks to both how it looked and how it played. While other popular fighting games added more buttons and off-the-wall combatants to try and appease general audiences new to the fighting game genre,Virtua Fightertook the opposite path by emphasizing the fundamentals in its design and keeping the playing field level through a simplistic control scheme and near-perfect balance among fighters. On the 30th anniversary of the title’sSaturndebut, this design philosophy deserves examination, as it is a pillar of both the series and the genre as a whole - making it something worth gravitating toward in the upcomingVirtua Fighter 6.
Despite Its Influence, Modern Fighting Games Continue to Drift From Virtua Fighter’s Lessons
The release ofVirtua Fighterwould serve as a signal tofighting gamedevelopers that the genre’s transition into 3D had begun, resulting in a wave of titles that closely followed in its footsteps. One of the earliest and most renowned titles to take inspiration fromVirtua Fighterwas none other thanTekken, kicking off an era in which 3D fighting game franchises' competition with one another would provide the spark for a string of genre innovations and evolution. But since that initial “boom” of the 3D fighter, the most well-known series in the genre have slowly but surely drifted away from the fundamentals embraced by earlier games in favor of enticing a general audience.
The originalVirtua Fighterwas a major hit and one of the Sega Saturn’s killer apps thanks to its faithful conversion of the arcade cabinet, but it also helped introduce a whole generation of players to a new style of fighting game.Virtua Fighter’s simple button scheme — which only utilizes kick, punch, and guard inputs along with an eight-way joystick — allowed for the game to be finely tuned and balanced in such a way that no one fighter had a distinct advantage against another, which also kept each match grounded and skill-based rather than allowing for easily-determined fail states in certain match-ups. But despite initially taking influence fromVirtua Fighter,Tekkenand other similar 3D fighters are now leaning into flashy visuals andgimmick fightersrather than focusing on core gameplay.
What the Original Virtua Fighter Can Impart to Virtua Fighter 6
After several months of rumors regarding the title’s existence, Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio announced the next game in theVirtua Fighterseries at The Game Awards 2024. As the first new mainline entry in the series in almost 20 years, that announcement was certainly cause for celebration among both series fans and fighting game fans, in general. But it also raises questions about what kind of fighting game thenewVirtua Fighterwill be, especially given the genre’s current shift toward appeasing general audiences along with the fighting game faithful.
It’s now been almost as long between new numberedVirtua Fightergames as it’s been since the release of the originalVirtua Fighteron home consoles, and there’s a golden opportunity for the next entry in the series to look to the franchise’s origins for its greatest source of inspiration. Rather than following in the footsteps of like-minded series likeTekken, RGG Studio’sVirtua Fighterhas the chance to stand out by looking to the original game in the series and embracing mechanical complexity and grounded fighting game design. Before RGG Studio was known for theYakuza/Like a Dragongames, it was an in-house arcade division for Sega, and there’s a chance that bridging of two eras of game design could result in a newVirtua Fighterthat both honors the original and breathes new life into the series. Considering that today serves as a landmark 30th anniversary for the IP, such a game releasing in the near future would be the perfect way to celebrate the milestone.
