The Marvel-less Arc Fest Of EVO 2018: The Fighting Community Reacts

Jason Fanelli,

February 13, 2018 6:50 PM

Marvel is out, Arc System Works is dominating, and EVO 2018 is featuring not one, but two Smash Bros games. What does the community think so far? We gathered voices from developers, players, and pros in the wake of last week's announcement.

The Evolution Championship Series is about to kick off once again, giving fighting game players everywhere plenty of competitive fisticuffs to anticipate in the coming months. The official Evo 2018 lineup was announced just last week, and for those that missed it, here’s the line-up for the main stage:

  • Tekken 7
  • Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
  • Street Fighter V
  • Blazblue Cross Tag Battle
  • Guilty Gear Rev 2
  • Injustice 2
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee
  • Dragonball FighterZ

The announcement came with all kinds of reactions from across the fighting game community, as this lineup is a mixture of exciting newcomers and long-standing veteran titles, with one very noticeable exception: Marvel vs. Capcom.

Some of the most notable reactions came from creators and players alike, starting with a pair of very happy developers:

Longtime Bandai Namco dev Katsuhiro Harada is no stranger to EVO, and this year two of his creations make the final field. It’s not often a person gets to see one of their projects hit the stage under one of the brightest spotlights in its genre, and Harada gets the honor twofold in the same event.

The team at Arc System Works has a lot to smile about too, as their games make up almost half of the main stage lineup. We haven’t seen domination like that since Capcom brought Street Fighter IV, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Street Fighter X Tekken to EVO 2012.

A few of this year’s competitors also expressed their intentions for this year’s show, putting everyone else on notice. Dragonball FighterZ producer Tomoko Hiroki will not only be at EVO supporting her game, she’ll be entering the tournament! Will the pros prevail or will knowledge of having helped make the game help her carve a path through the competition?

Then again, if there’s one person we’d love to see take on Hiroki, it’s Justin Wong. That could be a match to remember, and despite some mild disappointment, Wong made it clear that he's ready to compete on at least the Street Fighter V and Dragon Ball FighterZ stages.

The lineup was not met with complete praise however, as some selections quickly divided community members. Take Super Smash Bros. Melee, the oldest game on the EVO roster by a wide margin. Some players came out to voice their disapproval of the game continuing to find a spot on the roster over more “deserving” titles:

The reaction is somewhat understandable, as Melee has been around for nearly two decades and games like The King of Fighters XIV are newer and more representative of the current fighting game scene. However, others were quick to point out that though Smash Melee is much older in comparison to KOFXIV, the former still seems to consistently draw more attention than the latter.

The EVO planning committee has to side with the games that have the player bases, and those numbers do not lie. There’s most certainly an argument to be made about moving forward with the fighting game genre once a new game hits, but numbers like what Smash Melee and Wii U are putting up are hard to deny.

Some commenters held off from going in on any certain game and simply marveled (for lack of a better term) at what EVO chose to do:

This taps into Arc System Works' aforementioned dominance at EVO 2018 and their rise to the top of the fighting game food chain. It’s amazing how different the FGC landscape has changed since Street Fighter IV reignited the genre back in the late ‘00s. This tweet from J.F “KingFunk” Fissing sums it up perfectly: 

Six years ago watching a Smash Bros tournament at EVO was a pipe dream, and a lot of the anime fighting games were relegated to side tournaments. Now more than half of the featured lineup sits in those two classifications, while marquee names seem to be cast aside.

Speaking of which, the biggest reactions of the announcement by far came from the absence of Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, which launched in September 2017. The Marvel vs Capcom series will not appear at all on the EVO 2018 main stage, its absence the first for the franchise since the tournament changed its name to EVO in 2002. 

EVO organizer Joey “Mr Wizard” Cuellar was quick to address the decision on the official EVO broadcast.

“It was on a slippery slope,” claims Cuellar. “And it had a lot of competition going forward, and it just kind of fizzled. Not to talk smack on Marvel or anything. It's always been a great game for EVO. It was the main game for eight straight years... But I don't think people are playing it, and that's the problem.”

Twitter was abuzz with both shock and, as is the Internet way, sarcastic memes in response to the glaring omission:

Safe to say it’s easy to criticize the ironic issue of longevity that has been plaging Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite since even before it’s release, but that wasn’t even the worst gut punch to drop in the last few days since the announcement as you’ll see below.

The messages are enough to make Marvel fans sad, but the GIF coming straight from Dragon Ball Super and what seemingly ousted MvC:I is salt on the wound. 

Now that the lineup is out in the open, all we can do is speculate on what comes next. Can Arc System Works’ trio of toughness live up to the lofty expectations now set before them? Will the relegation of Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite to a side tournament shine a new light on a big part of the EVO experience? Can MvC:I  be brought to the main stage via fan vote as its predecessor Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 was last year? This will be a fun few months figuring all this out, but one thing’s for certain: EVO season is upon us and the competition is about to get blazing hot.

The argument still rages for Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite’s case in the fighting game community nonetheless. Check out our breakdown of the recent Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite tournament scene, which takes claims of an uninterested MvC:I community to task against comparable numbers for tournament fighting games like BlazBlue.

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