The 2024 Video Game Awards is in less than a month and with everything happening then, the nominees have been revealed. While we wait for the onslaught of next year’s games to come (Fatal Fury: City of The Wolves, 2XKO), and slightly coming off of the high that was 2023’s Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1 bringing back 1993, we still have this year to contend with. Obviously, we’ll be digging into the fighting game category here for there were a lot of entries that showed face here this year.
The obvious maker of the list is Tekken 8 or “the Somewhat end of the Mishima Saga”. The King of the Iron Fist Tournament is back after its’ near-decade hiatus to complete the story. With its’ new chibi lobby connected to a plot, surprise character comebacks such as Lidia and Heihachi, and Street Fighter EX / Fighting EX Layer’s Arika building the game, Tekken 8 ushered in a brand new aggressive mechanic called Heat to extend combos and access more powerful techniques locked in this mode, also. Tekken 8 was also the 2nd popular choice at Evo 2024 this year next to Street Fighter VI. Tekken 8 had also crossed its’ own records for sales in mere months of its cycle. Tekken 8 will be going toe-to-toe for the best Multiplayer game, also, against the likes of Helldivers 2.
Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection clenches regardless of the rocky start of its online features and lack of Xbox or a physical release. However, the nostalgia is brought about by the arcade’s perfect tags being unfiltered. Some quality-of-life improvements are present such as Eye flashing reduction were added to the classics. 6 titles of the 7 have had fans ready to scrap regardless of whether former MvC2 Evo Champion Justin Wong was online to break their spirits in Marvel vs Capcom 2. Fans have been eagerly waiting to get back into the world of Earth-30847 with the tag-team fighting game that started it all.
Dragonball Sparking Zero gets the nod despite being yet another anime fighter brought into the fold. Sparking Zero boasts a whopping 182+ warriors great and small from the gangs of popular favorites such as Goku and his many versions, to even Mr. Satan and Master Roshi. Sparking Zero continues Bodokai’s traditions more times than to extend FighterZ’s influence. The cinematics, even to present several What-ifs of the series lore is a cool bonus. 3 Million sales in 24 hours says a lot about Sparking Zero’s staying power.
Multiversus‘ 2nd coming shows that the world does need more Smash-like fighters. After its’ shut-down post its beta phase, Multiversus pits characters from various shows, movies, and the like, together and is the 2nd vocal fighting game appearance of the late Kevin Conroy of Batman: The Animated Series fame. Multiversus attempts to course correct with offline single-player modes to boot. During its’ run, in 2022, Multiversus held the record for most concurrent players on Steam.
Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising surprisingly clutched this list despite it being released in December 2023. Arc System Works‘s ability to churn an anime or mobile game into a potential for its own world championship competitive scene is unparalleled. Dragonball FighterZ and DNF Duel being the last few from the Guilty Gear producer. Versus Rising is the sequel to the 2020 Fantasy Versus with more characters and now-lobby mini-games.
Who Didn’t Make The Cut at the Game Awards
This has definitely been one of the many years that fighting games were showing up. Regardless of how the Game Awards will frame it, we do have some standouts that were not discussed as of yet. With 2D fighters like Coreupt and Blazing Strike jumping in this year, it’s hard not to look at the roster changes that didn’t make it.
French Bread’s Under Night In Birth 2 flew under the radar as a current release in February. While many titles took to 3D in some respect, the hand-drawn 2D brawler gets cozy enough with where it stands as a product of its’ time. I’d argue that Under Night 2 would be better suited for the title over Sparking Zero.
Rivals of Aether 2 has also been released in October this year, adding to the Smash-like fighters. Staying alive against Multiversus and of course, Smash Bros Ultimate is clearly a serious task. With the jump to 3D, Aether has returned to the front and with favorable reviews to boot.
As to who will come out on top, we’ll have to wait and see on December 12th.
