While the popularity of fighting games may have waned since its peak in the 1990s, the genre has maintained a persistent following among a hardcore segment of competitors that gather at tournaments and haunts like Next Level Arcade. Inconspicuously nested on a quiet block in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Next Level mainly attracts a diverse crowd of enthusiasts ranging from professional gamers to Wall Street traders.

In August, Ars accompanied photographer and gamer Simon Chetrit to Next Level. Chetrit has been working for several years on a photography project about the fighting game community. Shooting primarily with a large-format 4×5 film camera, Chetrit traversed the country, often staying up until dawn to photograph his subjects at first light.

One of the challenges Chetrit faced on the project was balancing his love of gaming with the task of being a documentarian. There were "a lot of deals that I had to make with myself," Chetrit said of the system he developed for accommodating both of his passions. The resulting work features formal portraits with an eye for color and light that chart the diverse ranks of the gamers he encountered over the course of the project.

While smaller in scale than the massive tournaments that Chetrit documented, our evening with him at Next Level offered a glimpse into a scene that mixes camaraderie and trash-talk while fingers feverishly peck at controllers.

Listing image by Nathan Fitch