It’s now been over one year since the New Virtua Fighter Project was first revealed to the world, but we’ve learned very little about the long-awaited title since.
That may finally be changing in the new year, however.
New Virtua Fighter Producer Riichiro Yamada recently took part in Famitsu’s annual New Year’s game developer messages to talk a bit about Sega’s plans for 2026.
He had previously offered a vague poetic statement about when fans will see more of the new VF title, but now he’s being a bit more specific.
“In 2026, I think the timing is right to unveil what we’ve prepared for the New Virtua Fighter Project,” said Yamada via Famitsu as translated by our own Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor. “Seeing how the new elements and challenges will be received or how fans will interpret them makes me feel like this will be a real ‘win or lose’ type of year, so I’m putting my all into it.”
“In 2026, I think the timing is right to unveil what we’ve prepared for the New Virtua Fighter Project”
So it certainly sounds as though Yamada and the Virtua Fighter team is gearing up for a big year ahead of them, though, that still leaves a very wide window open of when the game could actually pop back up again.
The most obvious answer would probably be the Virtua Fighter Open Championship taking place on March 1, 2026.
They also could try and hold the New Virtua Fighter Project for something geared towards wider gaming audiences like PlayStation’s State of Play or the Summer Games Fest too, and Sega will likely do their own Virtua Fighter Direct presentations at some point as well.
Sega previously showcased a brief gameplay concept trailer for the new Virtua Fighter at Evo 2025, which showcased ideas like dramatic slow motion and some teeth getting knocked out, but we still don’t know much of how the game will truly play out in action.
Although the New Virtua Fighter Project skipped doing any reveals at The Game Awards 2025, the producer has been opening up more lately to talk about his team’s goals for the title.
Yamada recently spoke on how he’d be satisfied if players can get a sense that VF feels different from other fighting games, and while development is progressing, they’re still working on building the title in a way that feels natural and recognizable through trial and error.
He previously talked as well about wanting to break away from the perception that Virtua Fighter is a difficult and complicated game.
Currently, Sega has only confirmed Akira Yuki, Stella and Wolf Hawkfield for the New Virtua Fighter Project, so we’ll just have to wait and see how much more they have planned to show us in 2026.
They’ve got a whole 365 days to do it.
Now former Tekken Director Katsuhiro Harada also recently shared his New Year’s messages about his future too.