Five Fighting Games Out By 2022
And what (little) we know about them
This week, I decided to take a brief look at some upcoming games with release dates slated throughout this year into the next. The fighting game genre has been experiencing a steady and exciting boom for the past several years, with titles of various scope and budget shaking up the player-base, from Dragon Ball FighterZ to Under Night In-Birth. But simply playing the cool new game isn’t enough, and developers have finally begun to realize that. Fortunately, four out of these five games from major IPs will have rollback out the gate, which means instead of worrying about basic features they may or may not have, we can focus on the gameplay itself. Which of these titles is the most enticing to you?
Guilty Gear Strive
We know a lot about GGST already, so it’s first on the list, with the briefest description. The game has been through some crucial revisions since the February Open Beta Test, namely rebalances and an updated lobby format. The rollback already feels excellent to play on, and we know that crossplay will be coming some time after the initial launch. There are only a few features left that I would like to see added in the game, such as a frame data and hitbox viewer in the training mode, and maybe even bonus training tools like the Replay Take Control function newly added to GGPO+R. We’ll be able to try the new online features for ourselves during the second OBT beginning on May 13th, and the final game will be out a month later. Hopefully, the delays and additional development times will have made GGST something worth waiting for.
King of Fighters XV
It’s strange that we don’t know a whole lot about KOFXV even though the game was announced two years ago and we’ve seen a sizeable chunk of the roster. Nineteen characters have been seen so far, seventeen of which have been featured in trailers (K’ and Leona are the only two without one) and five totally assembled teams. We know via tweets from director Yasuyuki Oda that the game will have rollback, and trailers tease a 2021 release window, but beyond that there’s not much else. The game will probably not play too differently than previous KOF titles, but we don’t have any details yet about engine mechanics beyond speculation derived from watching the trailers. We don’t even know what platforms the game will debut on- most players assume it’ll debut on current-gen consoles, but even the official website doesn’t say anything about this. The platform question is a genuine concern considering Samurai Shodown appeared on Stadia first before receiving an actual PC port via Epic Game Store, and next-gen consoles are currently difficult to track down. Hopefully, we get more information and even an open beta as we approach release, since we’re halfway through 2021.
Melty Blood: Type Lumina
In a weird twist from KOFXV, we know a substantial amount about Type Lumina despite French Bread being a much smaller studio than SNK. We know what platforms it’ll debut on (PS4, Xbox One, and Switch,) and that it’ll have in-house rollback. There will be a small roster on release- about ten characters- with a focus on characters from the original Tsukihime visual novel and its upcoming remake. Four such characters have been announced so far: Shiki, Arcueid, Ciel, and Akiha. We’ve only seen a few seconds of gameplay, so we don’t know how many systems from Melty Blood or Under Night will be returning or if it’ll be a middle ground of both games. We do know, however, that an auto-combo mechanic called Rapid Beat, like that of Under Night’s Smart Steer, will be included in the battle system. We also know that there’ll be a custom color palette editor, so we’ve basically got all the important information out of the way. Being another release slated for 2021, we can expect even more info soon.
Dungeon Fighter Duel
We haven’t heard hide nor hair about DNFD since the short teaser from December 2020, so all we can do is speculate about the game based on the IP and the pedigree of the developers attached to it. Dungeon Fighter Online, developed by Neople, is a Korean MMORPG with beat-‘em-up gameplay, and also the third most played video game of all time, with 700 million users as of May 2020. The fighting game spin-off is being developed in collaboration with both Arc System Works and Eighting, the latter of which players may remember from various fighting games, from Bloody Roar to the Naruto Clash of Ninja series to even Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The lure of a fighting game developed by two reputable teams who have both created historic entries to the genre is extremely strong. Ideally, we would hear more about the game later this year, possibly once main development on ASW’s current project is done. Hopefully, ASW uses the rollback implementation perfected on GGST for this game’s online, to make sure the game survives in the modern FGC. (Admittedly, since we don’t actually have any info about a release date, including this one here is kind of cheating, but five games is a nice number for a list like this.)
Project L
While Project L certainly has garnered the interest of players at large due to its attachment to Riot Games and the slowly expanding League of Legends universe, the FGC is exceptionally primed to receive this game. Development is being led by the Cannon brothers, whom most readers might know as Evo cofounders and creators of GGPO. Some players might also remember Rising Thunder, the fighting game with a roster full of robots that got the brothers’ development team acquired by Riot in the first place. Rising Thunder utilized customizable one-button special moves that made execution simple for newcomers, but changed the matchup variety in interesting ways. Tom Cannon has stated that the game’s “core systems” are in place, but that we probably won’t see any playable builds for another year. If RT serves as a template for Project L, we can expect the game to be simple enough that League players who’ve never touched a fighting game before to pick up their favorite champion and have fun, while still retaining the depth that the genre, and other Riot titles, are known for.
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With so many games coming up over the next year, players are bound to find something new and exciting to dive into. Personally, apart from Strive, I’m probably anticipating Melty Blood the most out of the titles, since Under Night is what got me into playing anime fighters in the first place. Conversely, I’ve been out of the League of Legends loop for some time now, and I honestly can’t think any of the champions I played back then would be fun to play in a fighting game- or at least, they wouldn’t be the type of fighting game character I usually enjoy. Regardless, I’ll probably end up trying all these games out at some point, and if their online is good, I’ll be able to play them for a long time. Since we’re also finally preparing for a return to in-person events, these titles are perfectly primed for a devout community to explore and compete in for years to come.
