Evo 2026 is planning to run more games on the mainstage with 12 titles over the usual 8 from recent years, and they’ll be pulling in communities from all across the genre.
With early bird registration coming to a close, the organizers have now revealed the current entrant leaderboard for Evo 2026.
It’ll probably come as little surprise that Street Fighter 6 is on top of the early leaderboard considering the game has held that position since it launched in 2023 and shows no signs of really slowing down.
Last year, Evo 2025’s final entrant numbers did see Street Fighter 6’s total drop to 4,228 total players from 5,265 at the record-breaking Evo 2024, but that was still more than enough to beat the second and third place games combined.
Evo Japan 2026’s early rankings showed Street Fighter dominating even harder with more than double the other 11 games combined last month though the overall leaderboard is shaping up quite differently at the start.
Despite being in fourth place in Japan then, Tekken 8 is still holding on to its second place position currently for Evo 2026, which is good to see for the game after the ups and downs faced in Season 2.
The third slot is now being filled by a new title in 2XKO though it’ll be interesting to see what its final numbers end up like for their Evo debut.
Guilty Gear Strive is continuing to go strong after five years by holding down the fourth spot while Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising has managed to hold on to the fifth place spot it got last year.
It is interesting to see that Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has fallen from that new game third spot at Evo 2025 to sixth place right now, which isn’t uncommon for a game entering its second year, and is technically not the largest fall in ranks either.
Moving past the halfway point, Invincible VS is actually in seventh and higher than some may have expected while the classic title Vampire Savior is behind it in eighth place.
1. Street Fighter 6
2. Tekken 8
3. 2XKO
4. Guilty Gear Strive
5. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
6. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
7. Invincible VS
8. Vampire Savior
9. Rivals of Aether 2
10. BlazBlue: Central Fiction
11. Under Night In-Birth 2 [Sys:Celes]
12. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage
Then we have another mainstage debut in ninth for Rivals of Aether 2 bringing platform fighters back to the Evo stage after Super Smash Bros. has been absent for over six years now.
The final games currently bringing up the rear are BlazBlue: Central Fiction, Under Night In-Birth 2 and Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage.
Technically, UNI2 has the largest drop in ranks so far from seventh last year down to eleventh in this early leaderboard, but there are four more games than last year and will have to wait to see what the actual numbers look like in the end.
Despite Sega’s pushes over the past year, it seems the new edition of VF5 isn’t fully catching on in the western tournament scene as much if it being at the bottom of the rankings here is any indication.
#Evo2026 Early Bird Registration Leaderboard pic.twitter.com/T8nFGXfflT
— Evo (@Evo) February 3, 2026
This year will be the first time in a long while that NetherRealm Studios hasn’t received mainstage attention, though, it isn’t too surprising considering Mortal Kombat 1 was the lowest entered game at Evo 2025 with only 377 players signed up.
With the early bird registration period now over, normal registration passes are being sold until May 4 where it’ll switch over to late registration until May 25.
Evo 2026 is taking place earlier than usual in Las Vegas, Nevada this year where the big event will be running from June 26–28.
The organizers also recently revealed the nominees for the Evo Awards 2026 that the public can vote on now.