Fighting games in 2026 are floundering, with everything not called Street Fighter 6 relegated to the trash bin of history.
You lost me on the first sentence. Are we pretending Guilty Gear didn’t just go from being an extremely niche IP to a household name last generation? While there are issues worth talking about, fighting games have been steadily growing year-over-year with no sign of slowing down.
Spares me from reading the article. It tires me when authors have to go the doomer-route and saying things are dying because they themselves, probably haven’t touched fighting games in a while. And just because they haven’t, then it must be a dying trend.
Yeah, it’s an article that makes you think it cites its sources and did its homework, but it doesn’t even examine why SF2’s success is so high, like that arcade revenue in the 90s is basically a cheat code compared to selling copies of console games, or that SF2 had a number of versions across that entire decade that all factor into that several billion dollars it earned. What the article refers to as “the dark ages” is actually a different era than what most would assign to the moniker to, misnomer though it might be. And it also states things as facts that aren’t; not just your Guilty Gear example but that somehow SF6 is the most homogenized SF game somehow. This feels like the author is just salty that they don’t care for the last few years’ offerings personally.
As someone who doesn’t pay attention to niche fighting games: Guilty Gear games are still being made? I thought they were a retro game or something. I think you’re overestimating it’s prominence. The only moden fighting games that come to mind as someone who has no interest in competitve play are Street Fighter, Mortal Combat (and Injustice), Smash Bros, and 2XKO. I’m don’t have confidence to say that fighting games aren’t growing, but the only news/attention I’ve seen for the genre since the launch of Street Fighter 6 has been a couple 2XKO trailers.
Guilty Gear is now a multi-million seller when every previous game didn’t even crack a tenth of that. Yes, what they did to Guilty Gear demonstrably worked. Tekken and Dragon Ball FighterZ are both huge. If I were a betting man, I’d say Marvel Tokon will do about as well as any of the other most successful fighting games out there.
You lost me on the first sentence. Are we pretending Guilty Gear didn’t just go from being an extremely niche IP to a household name last generation? While there are issues worth talking about, fighting games have been steadily growing year-over-year with no sign of slowing down.
Spares me from reading the article. It tires me when authors have to go the doomer-route and saying things are dying because they themselves, probably haven’t touched fighting games in a while. And just because they haven’t, then it must be a dying trend.
Yeah, it’s an article that makes you think it cites its sources and did its homework, but it doesn’t even examine why SF2’s success is so high, like that arcade revenue in the 90s is basically a cheat code compared to selling copies of console games, or that SF2 had a number of versions across that entire decade that all factor into that several billion dollars it earned. What the article refers to as “the dark ages” is actually a different era than what most would assign to the moniker to, misnomer though it might be. And it also states things as facts that aren’t; not just your Guilty Gear example but that somehow SF6 is the most homogenized SF game somehow. This feels like the author is just salty that they don’t care for the last few years’ offerings personally.
As someone who doesn’t pay attention to niche fighting games: Guilty Gear games are still being made? I thought they were a retro game or something. I think you’re overestimating it’s prominence. The only moden fighting games that come to mind as someone who has no interest in competitve play are Street Fighter, Mortal Combat (and Injustice), Smash Bros, and 2XKO. I’m don’t have confidence to say that fighting games aren’t growing, but the only news/attention I’ve seen for the genre since the launch of Street Fighter 6 has been a couple 2XKO trailers.
Guilty Gear Strive is a really fucking good fighting game
Guilty Gear is now a multi-million seller when every previous game didn’t even crack a tenth of that. Yes, what they did to Guilty Gear demonstrably worked. Tekken and Dragon Ball FighterZ are both huge. If I were a betting man, I’d say Marvel Tokon will do about as well as any of the other most successful fighting games out there.
The closest thing ive heard spoken of in nornal gaming circles is Sifu, and i think that has some progression over a single run as the character ages.