The World's Biggest Fighting Game Tournament Drops Street Fighter IV

Evolution

by Robert Ramsey Wed 27th Jan 2016

Evo, the world's most famous fighting game tournament, has brought an end to an era by announcing that Street Fighter IV - a title that's been played consistently at the yearly event since it launched in 2009 - has been dropped from this year's upcoming competition.

Of course, with Street Fighter V releasing next month, it comes as no real surprise, but it's still incredibly strange to see Street Fighter IV's absence on Evo's roster. Capcom's newest brawler will join titles such as Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat X, and Guilty Gear Xrd - Revelator.

Needless to say, some fighting game enthusiasts aren't happy with Street Fighter IV being dropped from the lineup completely - especially since Nintendo property Super Smash Bros. has two separate games in the running.

Still, we can't wait to see the new generation of Street Fighter take to the stage this summer. Let's just hope that the new challenger can produce the same amazing moments that are now synonymous with the franchise and this particular tournament.

Robert (or Rob if you're lazy) is an assistant editor of Push Square, and has been a fan of PlayStation since the 90s, when Tekken 2 introduced him to the incredible world of video games. He still takes his fighting games seriously, but RPGs are his true passion. The Witcher, Persona, Dragon Quest, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Trails, Tales — he's played 'em all. A little too much, some might say.

1
SasukeTheRipper
Wed 27th Jan 2016

Why not? Street Fighter V is going to be a lot better anyway

2
DerMeister
Wed 27th Jan 2016

Admittedly, despite my general dislike of tournament play, I always got a kick out of watching SF4 at EVO. I'm gonna miss it.

SFV will undoubtedly bring some great matches, though. So here's to the future.

3
NomNom
Wed 27th Jan 2016

Obviously makes sense with Street Fighter V coming out. Wouldn't expect them to have both 4 and 5 in the same Tournament.

4
themcnoisy
Wed 27th Jan 2016

@SasukeTheRipper That's a bit presumptuous. SF V could be terrible.

5
Azikira
Wed 27th Jan 2016

Melee, Smash 4, and Pokken Tournament? It truly is a good time to be a Nintendo fan.

6
Frank90
Wed 27th Jan 2016

SFV may be the only game on this list good as the Nintendo ones.

7
Matroska
Thu 28th Jan 2016

It's worth noting that SFIV had more competitors than the least popular 4 games on that list. It's quite a big deal to then introduce another SF on top of that that would either double the SF competitors there, cannibalise the SFIV competition or just leave the entrants very conflicted about what they're meant to focus on.

EVO's pretty odd anyway. It's completely non-representational of what people are actually playing, especially internationally. Some games get in even though they only have about 300 people playing them as part of the tournament (like Killer Instinct) and have no international scene (like Killer Instinct, again) so you can only imagine it's due to some kind of sponsorship deal. Other games have a low number of entrants (Tekken 7 with about 400-500) but are at least much more popular in the rest of the world.

8
Matroska
Thu 28th Jan 2016

@Frank90 None of those games are made by Nintendo. I know what you mean, but it's odd how Nintendo fans transfer everything to being "Nintendo games". No one says "Sony made a great game with Bloodborne, I can't wait to see what they've done with Uncharted 4" or "Microsoft make great games like Halo and Quantum Break".

Also, at least Microsoft actually owned Bungie when they made Halo and now own 343 Studios, and Sony own Naughty Dog. Nintendo didn't own HAL, didn't own Sora, and obviously don't own Namco Bandai.