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EVO 2022 lineup includes Street Fighter 5, KOF 15 & more

The EVO 2022 lineup features a last hurrah for Street Fighter 5, as well as an exciting debut for King of Fighters 15.

Ozzie Mejia

March 8, 2022 7:06 PM

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With COVID-19 beginning to subside, physical events are coming back and that includes EVO. EVO 2022 will return to Las Vegas and with it includes the fanfare of a reveal show. The main stage games were revealed on Tuesday night, some before the EVO stream even wrapped up.

Here are the main stage games coming to EVO 2022:

• Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition
• Guilty Gear Strive
• Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
• Tekken 7
• King of Fighters 15
• Melty Blood: Type Lumina
• Dragon Ball FighterZ
• Granblue Fantasy: Versus
• Skullgirls

As the EVO stream continued on Twitch, the remainder of the EVO 2022 lineup leaked, indicating that Skullgirls will be the ninth and final game at the fighting game tournament mega show. This continues the wild comeback story for Skullgirls, which was also played on the EVO 2021 Online main stage. The game has seen new life after an ugly scandal with Lab Zero Games lead Mike Zaimont and after IP holder Autumn Games cut ties with the embattled developer.

The other thing to note about this lineup is that it will likely act as a last hurrah for Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition. With Street Fighter 6 officially announced a few weeks ago, that game should be ready to roll out by the time EVO 2023 comes around. Of course, a development schedule (or even official gameplay) hasn't been revealed, so things could always change.

One comeback story paves the way for a series of noteworthy snubs. The most obvious one is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which EVO organizers revealed a few weeks ago would not return due to intervention from Nintendo. A less obvious snub is Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, which released as a PlayStation Plus freebie back in June. The Sega revival does not appear to have generated enough buzz to keep it in the fighting game conversation.

EVO 2022 will come to Las Vegas, NV from August 5-7 and will be the first live EVO since its purchase by Sony and RTS.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?