Evo 2025 is almost upon us and while entrant numbers might be down slightly from last year it’s still massive.
With the event now incorporating an extended lineup as well, a lot of developers will be taking to the main stages throughout the event and of course, there will be plenty of announcements abound as well. So what exactly can we expect? Well, let’s have a look at what seems likely.
Given that there are so many games on display at Evo 2025, I’ve decided to divide them up into categories for Main Lineup, Extended Lineup and of course a separate one for games that aren’t out yet, so let’s get into the nitty gritty of everything that’ll be at Evo 2025.
Starting off with Street Fighter 6, given that Sagat is releasing right after Evo 2025 and we’ve already gotten tons of footage and details on the character, he’s obviously not going to be showcased particularly at this event.
Also, given that Sagat is releasing just now, it’s highly unlikely we’ll get a peek at the next upcoming character C. Viper either since her release should still be several months away, though there is an off chance of it.
What we might see from Capcom’s flagship title, however, is proper footage of the upcoming Costume 4 coming to several characters which we’ve only seen artwork for so far, so there’s definitely something for fans to look forward for.
Next in line, we have Tekken 8 which has already shown us that Armor King will be coming to the game’s third season. With Fahkumram releasing about a month ago, it’s entirely possible we’ll get some gameplay for Armor King here at Evo 2025.
Another possibility is for us to get an early look at the final character of the pass. While they’re still some time away, Bandai Namco did say that the final character of the season will be brand new and also that they will not be a guest character.
Given that Evo 2025 is such a big stage, this would be a good opportunity to highlight this brand new challenger, but it’s still pretty far away so it’s not overly likely.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves just recently revealed the full gameplay for Street Fighter guest character Ken Masters whose release date is still just listed as “Summer 2025.”
There’s likely not much more to show of Ken before his release, but given that Andy was released at the end of June and that the developers said that every two months we can expect a new character, it’s likely that Ken will be out in August.
Since there’s probably not more to show for him specifically, it’s possible we’ll get an early look at the game’s next character Joe Higashi, but it’s hard to say given that he’s most likely set for October which is still some time away.
As for Arc System Works, Guilty Gear Strive showed us an image of upcoming guest character from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Lucy Kushinada about a month ago, but with her still not being out this is a perfect time for a full gameplay reveal of her.
There’s also the fact that the game’s producer Ken Miyauchi said that they’re planning something “big and exciting” after the game’s fourth season, so we might even get a reveal for what’s coming next if we’re lucky.
Similarly, their co-developed CyGames title Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising has its next character Wilnas set for Summer 2025, so this is a very adequate time to unveil the character with a trailer.
Finally, another Arc System Works related title is the French Bread game Under Night In-Birth 2 [Sys:celes] which we’ve known for a long time has its third DLC character planned for this summer, Izumi, who we most recently saw an update for at the Arc World Tour Finals back in March.
With Izumi’s release being imminent, a full trailer and release date for her is quite likely this weekend.
The other two main stage games are Marvel vs. Capcom 2 which is obviously exceptionally unlikely to have any kind of new announcement and Mortal Kombat 1 which has officially ended additional content support, so both of those are pretty much guaranteed to be non-factors as far as new announcements go.
The vast majority of Extended Lineup games are ones that are no longer supported with additional content, so while there is the off chance we’ll see something new for them, it seems safe to assume that BlazBlue: Central Fiction, Capcom vs. SNK 2, King of Fighters 15, Samurai Shodown, Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 and Killer Instinct aren’t going to see any significant announcements at the event.
However, the leading game in the Extended Lineup is Rivals of Aether 2 which has been actively adding new characters to its roster, most recently with Absa coming out at the start of July.
It’s not without the realm of possibility that we’ll see another character shown of for Rivals of Aether 2 — the title still has many favorites from the first game’s roster that have yet to join the sequel, so there’s ample characters to choose from.
As for Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., it’s probably not going to get any announcements for itself, but we do have the new Virtua Fighter Project coming up which we saw Wolf Hawkfield announced for a few months ago at Evo Japan 2025.
While there’s still many unknown factors for the upcoming Virtua Fighter, including the game’s actual title, it does seem that promotion for it is starting to ramp up this year so with its predecessor being a main stage Extended Lineup title at Evo 2025, it’d be shocking to not see a new trailer or announcement for it here at the event.
The most obvious candidate for new trailers or content is definitely the upcoming Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls from Arc System Works, published by Sony (who happen to own Evo) and I already wrote a separate piece detailing why an Evo announcement is pretty much inevitable.
As the new cool kid on the block, Sony, Marvel and Arc System Works all definitely want to keep the hype train riding all the way into its eventual release in 2026, so it’s highly likely that we’ll get new content for it here on the big stage, even more so since it’ll be playable at the event.
One which is also quite possible but markedly less likely is 2XKO, the League of Legends fighter from Riot Games. The reason it’s less likely is solely because we got a new character reveal for Vi just one week ago.
However, with the game still set for a 2025 release as well as the game’s closed beta which is set to roll into the full release set for early September, it’s not entirely out of the question that we’ll see a new character reveal since the roster which currently has eight announced characters is reportedly going to be at ten characters by release.
Since there’s two more to go before the full release hits, it is possible that we’ll get something new here at Evo 2025, though given Vi’s trailer was so recent I personally wouldn’t be expecting it. For what it’s worth, 2XKO is also going to be playable in a build with all of the currently announced characters at Evo 2025 for attendees.
Another game which will be at Evo 2025 in a playable state is yet another upcoming tag fighter Invincible Vs. which has steadily been releasing new character trailers since its announcement about two months ago.
Although it’s set for 2026 and has some time left before coming out, depending on roster size we may have some brand new reveals slated for it, though it seems less of a sure thing than Marvel Tokon given that we’ve consistently gotten new trailers since its unveiling while Marvel Tokon has stayed silent since then.
Finally, although it’s not an upcoming game, I’d be remiss not to mention that the recently released Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impact does have DLC coming up with the first character already announced to be Nephelpito.
Evo 2025 would be a prime opportunity to show off this upcoming character as well as their release date and perhaps even tease who’s coming up next afterwards since there are three more characters slated to come within the season pass as well.
On top of all of these, there’s also of course always the possibility of brand new fighting games being unveiled, but there’s really no way for us to know that.
There have been rumors floating around that despite Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls coming out that we’d have a Marvel vs. Capcom 4 happening concurrently with it and while that does seem like a crazy scenario, you can never really predict what’s going to happen in the crazy business that is the gaming industry.
For now, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the show this weekend. I’ll be publishing a full Evo preview for the actual competition part of the event this week as well, so stay tuned for more information on everything that will be going on this weekend and where to catch the action.
As always, here at EventHubs there will be full coverage of Evo 2025 as it happens with results for all of the present games so make sure to stick around this weekend for all of the live updates.