Fighting game lovers eager for a chance to prove themselves in head-to-head combat received much welcome news this week when the announcement of EVO Online arrived via a tweet Wednesday.
The online event is replacing EVO 2020, which was scheduled to take place at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas during the weekend of July 31 before being canceled due to COVID-19.
While details are still scarce, we do know EVO Online will play out over the course of five consecutive weekends, beginning July 4. The final days of competition will coincide with the dates of the now-canceled in-person tournament.
EVO Online’s official lineup includes eight of the nine games the original event had announced for its tournaments.
Those games are: Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, Tekken 7, Granblue Fantasy Versus, Marvel vs. Capcom 2: Tournament of Champions, Under Night In-Birth, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Soulcalibur VI, and Samurai Shodown.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been cut.
More details on the event, including signup information, will be released soon.
The tweet included the following promotional video:
This will be the first year EVO will not be held in person since 2002. When the cancellation was first announced, some took to Twitter to express concern that attempts to replicate the in-person experience of the event would fall short. EVO founder Tom Cannon, however, responded directly to some of those concerns.
“I hear ya. The intent is not at all to port a traditional Evo to online and pretend it’s the same,” he tweeted. “It’s going to be a different kind of event.”
With what’s been revealed so far, Cannon appears to be sticking to his word, however, EVO’s president already appears willing to add EVO online to their roster of events if it proves popular enough.
And, while most would agree that online competitions should never replace the annual in-person tournament, most fighting game fans are likely OK with EVO online becoming a regular event.
