The biggest fighting game event of the year, Evolution Championship Series Las Vegas, or Evo, took place over this past weekend, with thousands of fans converging for tournaments centered around the biggest games in the industry. This expands to a full convention experience, as major video game publishers punctuate the weekend-long event with special announcements and previews of upcoming titles. More than just celebrating fighting games in all their shapes and sizes, Evo also provides a wider glimpse at the current state of the genre and this year’s event was no different in that regard.

One of the big continuing trends in the fighting game scene is that, ever since its launch in 2023, Street Fighter 6 is still the most popular combat title in the world, at least at the competitive level. The Capcom game posted 2,414 entrants, over one thousand more participants than the second-most popular game at the event, Tekken 8 with its 1,354 tournament entrants. With Capcom regularly supporting Street Fighter 6 with post-launch content, including adding four new playable characters every year and recently porting the game to the Nintendo Switch 2, Street Fighter is still the clear fighting game king it’s been since at least 1991.

One of the bigger surprises, however, is how much the 2024 game Rivals of Aether II has grown just since Evo Las Vegas 2025, where the indie title received 363 entrants for its tournament. Fast-forward less than 11 months later and Rivals of Aether II boasted 1,022 participants as one of only four games this year to receive over a thousand registered competitors. Not only is this a huge accomplishment for an indie title in any public form but nearly tripling its competitor count suggests this game is not only finding its audience but has some impressive post-launch legs going for it.

The only other game to receive more than one thousand entrants in Las Vegas this year is 2XKO, with 1,080 contenders; an impressive splash for the League of Legends fighting game in its debut year. This strong start can be attributed to 2XKO having a huge preview presence at last year’s Las Vegas event as well as the strong built-in global audience associated with the League of Legends brand. The other big winner of the weekend is Guilty Gear Strive which, five years after its launch, still received an impressive 912 entrants.

Now, for some of the less than stellar numbers from the weekend as a sign of changing times for the genre overall. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, in its second year at the event only clocked 443 entrants this year, signaling that the big SNK revival may not have the staying power it hoped. Similarly, Invincible VS, in its own debut year at the tournament, only received 403 entrants; this despite it being based on a popular Prime Video animated series and having a major preview presence in Las Vegas last year. That just goes to show that built-in brand recognition and hype doesn’t always translate to the same numbers as 2XKO.

What’s important to keep in mind is that Evo Las Vegas overall saw a significant downturn in attendance and competitive entrants compared to the event last year. The 2025 event registered 8,541 entrants across all of its games, while 5,774 registered tournament participants joined this year’s event. Even powerhouses like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 saw roughly half the competitors this year compared to last year.

This significant reduction can be attributed to Evo Las Vegas moving up its event to late June compared to last year’s early August, the increasing cost of, well, everything (but particularly travel expenses), and the general state of the industry. 2026 has been a year of success stories in the gaming industry, but also one rife with major games shutting down, not meeting sales expectations, and thousands of developers laid off. Fighting games aren’t immune to these trends and Evo could reflect the instability in the wider industry today in the face of uncertain times.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, of course, with plenty to be excited about regarding the future of fighting games coming out of Evo. At Summer Game Fest 2026, Capcom announced the four new characters coming to Street Fighter 6 over the next year, including the surprise announcement of Tifa from Final Fantasy VII. Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive, and Invincible VS, and other games at the event, similarly announced their own incoming new characters. Publishers are building fighting games with long-term rollouts and support post-launch in mind and that does show confidence in building and retaining an audience.

Evo is in a state of transition but fighting games themselves are largely fine, from its established franchises to newcomers to the genre. The popularity of 2XKO underscores that audiences are open to new titles and experiences while the growth of Rivals of Aether II at an event where other games saw diminishing returns hints that indie games can definitely run with the big boys. Hopefully, if the world and industry stabilizes going into 2027, Evo can bounce back on its attendance and entrant numbers but, it’s always good coming together to celebrate the state of fighting games as a whole.

— Sam Stone, Den of Geek contributor

This is the first Evo in over a decade that didn’t feature a NetherRealm Studios game among the major competitive tournaments, with no Mortal Kombat or Injustice titles having a presence. This just feels odd, especially in a year when a Mortal Kombat movie came out in theaters just the previous month and with 2023’s Mortal Kombat 1 selling over eight million copies. If anything needs to make an Evo comeback, it’s Mortal Kombat, even if only for one of the older games taking on the retro tournament spots.

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