Sega present a new version of classic fighting game Virtua Fighter 5, that adds several new features at a temptingly low price tag.

We’re not sure how Sega’s revival of its classic arcade brands is going but we’re beginning to worry that they left it too late. Almost everything they’ve announced, or at least hinted at, so far has seemed promising but despite being very good, Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance seemed to come and go with little fanfare. It was the first of the loosely defined new wave of reboots and sequels, but Sega also seem very keen to revive 3D fighting game Virtua Fighter as well.

The original 1993 game was groundbreaking in terms of both its depiction of the human form and for being the first 3D polygonal fighting game. Virtua Fighter 2 was so popular that the Saturn conversion was one of the key reasons why the console wasn’t a flop in Japan, like it was everywhere else.

Despite that fact, and in conjunction with the death of arcades, the series quickly began a downward spiral in popularity, as it was completely overshadowed by Tekken and others. That’s a shame though because what it lacks in personality it makes up for in technical prowess, in what remains one of the landmark achievements in the genre.

Explaining exactly what Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage is, is complicated but the first thing to make clear is that it’s not The New Virtua Fighter Project that Sega has been teasing from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, makers of Yakuza/Like A Dragon. Whatever that is, it seems in more in line with Sega’s grander plans for rebooting its lapsed franchises, whereas this is basically the same team practicing their fighting game development skills.

To that end, they started with Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown in 2021, as a team-up with original developer Sega AM2 (surprisingly, they are still going). It was a port of the 2006 arcade game Virtua Fighter 5, with no story campaign and aimed solely at online players. It was priced accordingly though and for anyone that dared give it a go was a useful reminder of just how good the series is.

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., without the World Stage qualifier, was an upgrade of Ultimate Showdown (we guess it wasn’t the ultimate release after all) that was released in January but, for some reason, only on PC. The World Stage version is another upgrade, although if you own Ultimate Showdown, which was a PlayStation 4 exclusive, you can get it for a very modest fee. Even the 30th Anniversary Edition, which includes all the DLC, is relatively cheap.

That’s an exhausting explanation but it seems important to clarify exactly what World Stage is trying to do, so as to avoid disappointment. The changes from Ultimate Showdown are minor but worthwhile, most obviously that you now have rollback netcode and cross-play support. In fact, it seems crazy that they launched without the former in the first place, when it came to Ultimate Showdown.

There’s also a new single-player mode (the titular World Stage) which was not essential, given Virtua Fighter’s lack of history in that area, but is a welcome surprise. Even if it does emphasise that the cast of characters have virtually no personality or lore surrounding them, which is the obvious reason why Tekken became so much more popular. In this case there’s no real story, but instead a virtua(l) representation of competing at an arcade, against computer-controlled players.

The other reason that Virtua Fighter got sidelined by Tekken, is that it’s a lot harder to master. The basics are as simple as any other fighter, although unlike Tekken, which essentially takes place along a 2D plane, Virtua Fighter makes fuller use of 3D space. So that combined with the more complex movesets means that the second you go up against someone that knows what they’re doing, including the AI, button-mashing gets you nowhere.

After this, we’re excited to see what the new game is (Sega)

The fact there’s no power meters or other gimmicks also puts the emphasis firmly on your own skill and knowledge of the moves and characters, which is the key appeal of the game but also another element that prevents it from being more broadly popular.

World Stage does try to compensate for that as well though, with better training options and an improved replay feature, which is perfect for working out what you did wrong and why an opponent is doing so well. Of course, that requires a certain amount of commitment and a high level of engagement from the start, but that has always been the case for Virtua Fighter.

There’s also a lot of minor balancing changes and a few extra, or returning, moves, which again speaks to the amount of effort that’s gone into what at first seems a minor update. The only real problem is that most of the customisation options are locked away behind DLC, but then the Anniversary Edition is pretty cheap, if you want to go all-in from the start.

It’s not yet clear what the new Virtua Fighter game will be, or when it will be released, but according to Sega it will feature a much more story led single-player campaign. We hope it’s successful because Virtua Fighter has a proud legacy, which World Stage represents very well. It’s probably still not very appealing to more casual gamers but Virtua Fighter 5 remains one of the best fighting games of all time.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £15.99*
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Release Date: 30th October 2025 (Switch 2 TBC 2025)
Age Rating: 12

*£7.99 if you own Virtua Fighter Ultimate Showdown; 30th Anniversary Edition is £32.99

Sadly the graphics are no longer state of the art (Sega)

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.