After teasing the classic fighting game franchise’s return last fall, this morning Sega announced Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, a PlayStation 4-exclusive update to a game that’s almost 15 years removed from its original release at this point. Oh, and it’s launching June 1, also known as next Tuesday.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown still boasts the same base combat system as Final Showdown, the game’s 2012 console re-release, just with an added coat of paint. Sega copy mentions new, high-definition graphics, with updated character models, stages, cinematics, and music. I’m not quite sure what to think of that new user interface yet, but I guess it’s passable.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown is a joint venture between original developer Sega AM2 and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the group most widely known for its work on the Yakuza series. Seeing as Yakuza 6 and series spin-off Judgment both featured full-fledged ports of Final Showdown, it stands to reason that the devs are more than familiar enough with the game to lend a hand on this update. Sadly, no mention is made of rollback netcode, which doesn’t bode well for Ultimate Showdown’s online future in the fighting game community.
More information on Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown and the future of Virtua Fighter competition is expected later this week, so stay tuned.