Virtua Fighter Developers Want to Achieve Reality, Not Realism

Since its inception, Virtua Fighter has been a standout title that was unlike anything else you could find in the genre or the medium of video games as a whole. SEGA, and particularly Yu Suzuki, went to extreme lengths to make sure that Virtua Fighter is a series that offers both incredibly grounded gameplay and top of the line visuals, which at one point involved purchasing technology off of Lockheed Martin.

In many ways, every game that followed would build on these tenants and maintain a laser focus on making combat feel realistic, while also putting in as many visual details as possible to depict the nuanced physicality of martial arts and the people who represent them.

Now, with the new entry on the horizon (and with such a gigantic gap between the sequel and the last mainline entry), the topic of the series identity is once again relevant. Many things have changed over the decades, and the vision for what a modern fighting game looks like is very different from what it was back when Virtua Fighter 5 came out. Spectacular cinematic for the spectators, simplified mechanics and controls, introducing meters, stocks, and installs to safeguard things that used to be powerful elements of the base systems.

None of those things are "Virtua Fighter," and it seems like the game's producer, Riichiro Yamada, is keenly aware of this, as evident from the latest interview he had with AUTOMATON.

The major topic for this interview is "identity." When asked about what makes the "core" of Virtua Fighter, Yamada said that it's hard to summarize it, but one of the defining words is "reality," not "realism." He clarifies this with an admittedly confusing follow-up that Virtua Fighter is not strictly trying to mimic martial arts, but to maintain a balance between those martial arts, and what would be fun in a video game. Achieving "reality" by making the most of these two seemingly clashing goals.

But don't worry, one thing that Yamada took a hard stance on, is that nothing should be slowing down the game or interrupting your control: "Our guiding philosophy is not to add anything unnecessary to the gameplay. I believe that in a fighting game, anything that stops player control, even for a moment, for the sake of visual flair is unacceptable"

When asked if there's something that he feels needs to be refreshed about the series, he gave a fairly vague response about Virtua Fighter being perceived as too difficult, even though it shouldn't be, as the game is built around merely 3 buttons. He didn't specify how they plan to achieve this, but this perception of overwhelming complexity is something that they want to break away from.

More encouragingly, they also plan on expanding the game's story and characters. Even the most diehard fans will typically admit that this part of the series has been very lackluster. Despite being such an iconic franchise, VF only really has one recognizable character in Akira, and he is a bit of a blank slate.

Yamada said that right now, the team is "grinding through a gritty process of trial and error," but also commended the involvement of RGG team (the developers of the Yakuza series), who are able to very quickly craft environments that display a tremendous level of quality and attention to detail. Yamada also mentioned that the idea for the new VF game appeared shortly after he came back to SEGA in 2023, and he was involved in the project from the start. With modern development cycles, this likely means that the new Virtua Fighter game is still quite far from release. However, the fact that they are more actively promoting this game and talking about it, is a great sign that we're going to see a lot more Virtua Fighter in 2026.