The Japanese publisher is going to revive another franchise, so SEGA is really trying to build on its past (because Shinobi and Jet Set Radio will be back, for example).
Justin Scarpone, head and executive vice president of SEGA’s international transmedia group, confirmed in an interview with VGC that Virtua Fighter is being taken a step further after a long time, as Virtua Fighter 5 has been the only game that has been in the spotlight in recent years (as silly as that sounds).
“So we have a number of titles in development right now that fall into that legacy bucket that we announced last year at The Game Awards; Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and we have another Virtua Fighter in development. So it’s all very exciting. And then in certain cases, we’re also doing animated series or live-action movies to complement that and be part of those roadmaps,” Scarpone said, without going into further detail.
Virtua Fighter has been around for over three decades. The first installment debuted in arcades in 1993. It made the jump to the SEGA Saturn in 1994 and the 32X in 1995. Virtua Fighter 2 hit the arcades in 1994, the Saturn in 1995, the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1996, and the PC in 1997. The third main episode came in 1996 (to arcades; followed by Virtua Fighter 3tb in 1997, and it also appeared on the Dreamcast in 1998). Virtua Fighter 4 came with several updates, but first hit arcades in 2001, and then PlayStation 2 in 2002. Virtua Fighter 5 came to arcades in 2006, and then to PlayStation 3 in 2007. There have been several versions, but we’ll only mention the most recent, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, which runs on the Dragon Engine from the Yakuza/Like a Dragon games. It will be released on PlayStation 4 in 2021.
So it’s really time for a new title, because it’s been 18 years since the fifth episode!
Source: Gematsu
