RGG and Sega share new Virtua Fighter Project pre-development concept video

thesixthaxis.com:

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega have released a “pre-development concept video” for the new Virtua Fighter project that was announced during The Game Awards last month. Check it out:

Looks good, right? Well, it’s all just proof of concept right now, labelled as “Pre-development in-engine footage” and “not actual gameplay”, and so there’s absolutely nothing about the game name, platforms or release windows a moment, but it is showing some of the intent behind RGG’s fighting series revival.

There’s various things to note here, from the density of detail through the backdrops to the light 3D shifting through the stage, and an element of destruction as one Akira throws the other Akira around. There’s also some more of that fighting game visual flair with motion trails and other effects as hits land, where Virtua Fighter has generally been more constrained than others in the genre.

All of this is subject to change, of course, but it’s an initial direction that RGG are taking.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has become a lynchpin studio for Sega over the last few years. You’ll know them best as the studio behind the hugely popular Yakuza/Like A Dragon series, but as broad as that series has become, they’ve also handled recent Super Monkey Ball games as well. Given that Yakuza’s own combat was a hand-me-down from Shenmue, which was in turn fed a branch off from Virtua Fighter, this makes them the perfect team to take the series’ reins.

Thus far, we’ve only seen Akira and Sarah Bryant going fighting, and with this pre-production video, it’s a pair of Akira battling.

Fans of the series have been waiting patiently ever since the original launch of Virtua Fighter 5. While it leapt through the past couple of generations with Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, and is still very playable on modern consoles, there’s little to no online community right now. Sega is looking to give that game a shot in the arm, both with a recent 2.0 update to Ultimate Showdown with a new PC port, Virtua Fighter 5