Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
The COVID-19 pandemic sent hopes most physical events in 2020, and especially fighting game tournaments, crashing to the ground in a smoldering heap of high infection rates and poor management throughout the last few months (at least in the U.S.). The fighting game scene has seen the likes of EVO, CEO, Combo Breaker, and much more forced to cancel outright, leaving things like Street Fighter 5’s Capcom Cup and TEKKEN 7’s TEKKEN World Tour in jeopardy. Nonetheless, the shows must go on somehow and some have found ways to pivot, Arc System Works’ ARCREVO Tour among them, which just saw announcement of ARCREVO 2020 America and Japan Online series.
Arc System Works and partner XSEED Games announced ARCREVO 2020 Online on August 1, 2020. Taking place later on in the year, ARCREVO 2020 Online will see the Arc System Works fighting tournament series move to a format of netplay events in lieu of physical event attendance. Both North America and Japan will receive separate tournament series featuring several ASW games with events and dates coming later on this year as well.
The games that will be featured in the ARCREVO 2020 Online tours are as follows.
In addition to separate events for these games, Arc System Works is hoping to arrange a US vs Japan crossover exhibition for which the details will also be announced later this year. Undoubtedly, the schedule for ARCREVO 2020 Online will run into 2021 and Arc System Works and its partners will use the events to push further news, content updates, and reveals for its new and ongoing games. Guilty Gear Strive was pushed back to 2021 due to COVID-19, but that hasn’t stopped ASW from pushing a wealth of interesting updates on the game, the most recent of which was the reveal of Leo Whitefang and Nagoriyuki.
Regardless, Arc System Works current games, and especially Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and Granblue Fantasy Versus are not known for their great netcode. Strive will be one of the first ASW games to feature rollback netcode, so it will be interesting to see how ARCREVO 2020 Online rolls out. Stay tuned to for dates and events to be revealed at a later date.