The Evolution Championship Series, commonly known as Evo, is an American annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are completely open and use the double elimination format. As with Super Battle Opera, contestants travel from all over the world to participate, most notably from Japan. The first Evolution was originally held as a Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 tournament called the Battle by the Bay. It changed its name to Evo in 2002. Every successive tournament has seen an increase of attendees. It has been held at various venues across the Las Vegas Valley since 2005. As of 2021, the event is jointly owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment and the Endeavor esports venture RTS.
GGPO is middleware designed to help create a near-lagless online experience for various emulated arcade games and fighting games. The program was created by Tony Cannon, co-founder of fighting game community site Shoryuken and the popular Evolution Championship Series.
The fighting game community, often abbreviated to FGC, is a collective of video gamers who play fighting games such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Smash Bros., Tekken, Soulcalibur, Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter and many others. The fighting game community started out small in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s referred to as the grassroots era, but it has grown to a larger scale in the 2010s, with many tournaments being held around the world. This is predominantly due to the rise of esports, online gaming, and digitized viewing habits on live streaming sites such as Twitch.
The 2016 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas on July 15–17. Being hosted on the twentieth anniversary of the Evolution Championship Series, the event offered tournaments for various video games, including Street Fighter V, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Pokkén Tournament. Participation reached record-breaking numbers, with over 5,000 people registering for the Street Fighter competition alone. 2016 was the first time the Evo Grand Finals were held in an arena and were broadcast by ESPN2 in addition to Twitch.
The 2015 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas on July 17–19. The event featured a major tournament for nine fighting games, including the largest Super Smash Bros. tournament up to that point and a highly popular Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament. The Street Fighter IV tournament was won by Yusuke Momochi, defeating GamerBee in the Grand Finals.
The 2014 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in at Westgate Las Vegas on July 11–13. The event featured a major tournament for eight fighting games, including Ultra Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. The event was part of the first Capcom Pro Tour.
The 2013 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held at Paris Las Vegas on July 12–14. The event featured a major tournament for nine fighting games, including Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Injustice: Gods Among Us. The event's Super Smash Bros. Melee livestream was controversially blocked by Nintendo of America, though the company decided to allow the tournament to be streamed after being faced with community backlash.
The 2012 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas on July 6–8. The event featured a major tournament for six fighting games, including Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, as well as various smaller-scale competitions.
The 2017 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas on July 14–16 that was part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event offered tournaments for various fighting games, such as Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Injustice 2. Over 10,000 people registered for the event with Tekken 7 receiving double the number of players from the previous year.
VSFighting is a tournament series of annual esports events that focuses on competitive fighting games. The tournament is open to all. VSF is the flagship tournament to Electronic Dojo, a fighting games community based in the West Midlands, UK.
The 2011 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in the Rio Las Vegas on July 6–8. The event featured a major tournament for five fighting games, including Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Marvel vs. Capcom 3, as well as various smaller-scale competitions.
The 2018 Japanese Evolution Championship Series, commonly referred to as Evo Japan 2018, was a fighting game event held in Tokyo, Japan on January 26–28. As mentioned in its namesake, the event was the first Evo event to take place in Japan and outside of the United States. The event offered tournaments for various fighting games, such as Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Over 5,000 people registered for the event with Street Fighter V and Tekken 7's entrant numbers being on par with their respective Evo 2017 numbers.
The 2018 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas on August 3 to 5 as part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event offered tournaments for various video games, including Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Over 10,000 people registered for the event with Dragon Ball FighterZ receiving the most entrants.
Granblue Fantasy Versus is a 2.5D fighting game developed by Arc System Works for the Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. It is based on the role-playing video game Granblue Fantasy, and was released in Japan and Asia by Cygames and Sega, respectively on February 6, 2020, and in the west by Xseed Games and Marvelous Europe in March. The PC Windows version was released worldwide on March 13 in the same year. A sequel, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, was released on December 14, 2023.
The 2019 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas from August 2 to 4, 2019 as part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event offered tournaments for various video games, including Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball FighterZ, as well as the newly released Soulcalibur VI, Mortal Kombat 11, Samurai Shodown, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; the latter received the most entrants with over 3,500 players participating, making it the largest in person Super Smash Bros. tournament of all time.
The 2020 Evolution Championship Series was a planned fighting game event. While a physical event was to have been in Las Vegas from July 31 to August 2, 2020, as part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizations cancelled the physical event, and instead planned a series of online events running from July 4 to August 2, 2020. The online event was later cancelled due to sexual misconduct allegations against organizer and co-founder Joey Cuellar.
Maximilian Miles Christiansen, best known under the alias Maximilian Dood, is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer. Considered a prominent figure in the fighting game community, Christiansen primarily makes video content on various fighting games, such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. He is particularly a fan of the Marvel vs. Capcom series. He is also known for his grassroots efforts to organize fighting game tournaments along with his campaigns to revive various fighting game series.
The 2022 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas from August 5 to 7, 2022 as part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event offered tournaments for various video games, including Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball FighterZ, as well as the newly released Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Granblue Fantasy Versus and The King of Fighters XV. It also marks the first time that Skullgirls was a main event game 10 years after its release. This is the first tournament held in-person since 2019. This is the first tournament sponsored under the co-sponsors Sony Corporation and Pokimane-led RTS.
Tekken 8 is a 2024 fighting game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Arika and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the eighth canon release in the Tekken series and the first one to debut on home systems instead of arcades. Game tests were held starting in July 2023 before the final game was released for the PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on January 26, 2024.
The 2024 Evolution Championship Series was a fighting game event held in Las Vegas from July 19 to 21, 2024 as part of the long-running Evolution Championship Series. The event marked the debuts of Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] and Mortal Kombat 1. It also the return of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike as a mainline game for the first time since 2009.
