EVO Japan is about to start in Fukuoka

Short for Evolution Championship Series, EVO is the largest and longest-running fighting game tournament series in the world. There have been events all over the world of course, and the next one up is in Japan – it’ll see the best players from around the world competing in the most popular fighting games in the world. Well, not all of them – EVO Japan has, curiously enough, excluded a few popular games from their line-up, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Dragon Ball Fighter Z.

That doesn’t mean that top titles won’t be there though – the games that WILL make an appearance are pretty high profile as well. Perhaps the biggest name there is Street Fighter V – along with it, there’ll be events for Soul Calibur VI, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, King of Fighters XIV and Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2.

The event is going to start on the 15th of February with the Qualifications, starting at 12am local time. On the 16th, there’ll be more qualifications and the beginnings of the finals from 9am onwards. The last day, February 17th, will see the remaining finals after 8am local time.

There’s an official timeline for everything of course – while the first two days have several events scheduled concurrently, the last day has 4 separate block events for the four main games of the event:

first BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle from 9am until 11.30am,

then Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 from 12pm until 2.30pm,

Tekken 7 from 3pm until 5.30pm

and finally Street Fighter V from 6pm until 8.30pm.

The total prize pool across all games is 10 million yen – that’s roughly 80.000 Euros. 3 Million of that are earmarked for Tekken 7, 1 for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, 1 for SoulCalibur VI, 1 for The King of Fighters XIV, 1 for Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, and 3 for Street Fighter V. All in all, that’s some pretty impressive amounts to be won!

The event has some pretty big name sponsors as well – obviously, it’s being supported by the publishers of the game titles, for example Bandai Namco and Capcom, but also companies like Nissan, Square Enix, Panasonic, Razer and Alienware are sponsoring the event.

As for who will be playing – it’s an open tournament, meaning that anyone can sign up and play if they want to. The tournament will play out in a double elimination system, with a winners and losers bracket – two losses and the player is out.

In addition to the main games of the tournaments, there are also over a dozen side tournaments running alongside the main ones. Blade Strangers (PS4), BURIKI ONE (AC), Capcom vs SNK2 (AC), Catherine Fullbody (PS4), CHAOS CODE FKD (AC), DRAGON BALL Fighter Z (PS4), Fatal Fury Special (AC), FIGHTING EX LAYER (AC), GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS R (PS3), Mario Tennis Ace (Nintendo Switch), MARVEL VS. CAPCOM: INFINITE (PS4), Pop’n Music (PS2), Psychic Force 2012 (AC), Puyo Puyo eSports (PS4), Puzzle League (SNES), Skullgirls (PC), STREET FIGHTER II (PS4), STREET FIGHTER III 3rd STRIKE (AC), Touhou Eboludun (PC), ULTIMATE MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3 (PS4), ULTRA STREET FIGHTER IV (AC), Vampire Savior (AC) and WORLD HEROES (AC) are all part of these side events.