EVO Online is five weeks of fighting game action

Evolution Championship Series has released a few new details about their upcoming EVO Online event. Forced to cancel the annual event due to the coronavirus pandemic, the organizers pivoted to an online edition to ensure 2020 doesn’t completely lose out on the EVO magic.

EVO Online will feature special exhibitions and content for the canceled event’s mainstage games, like Dragon Ball FighterZ, Granblue Fantasy Versus, Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, Samurai Shodown, and UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH Exe:Late[st]. However, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was conspicuously missing from the list shown in the announcement video. Although many of these games have had issues with online play, Smash Ultimate saw a few controversies during the ongoing online tournament The Quarantine Series. These issues eventually led to the event being region-locked to the United States, Mexico, and Canada. 

That’s not to say the online experience for all the other main stage games listed is perfect, but each has their own unique experiences. Fortunately, Capcom has been working hard to fix the Street Fighter V: Champion Edition netcode for some time now, and many fans have seen results.

The online event will also have open tournaments for Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath, Killer Instinct, Them’s Fightin’ Herds, and Skullgirls 2nd Encore. These games make use of rollback netcode, which improves the online experience in high-latency networks, meaning we could see more of a global presence in these titles and much fewer issues. Sign up information and more tournament details will be revealed soon.

EVO Online will take place over five weekends through July. The specific dates are:

• July 4-5

• July 11-12

• July 18-19

• July 25-26

• July 31-August 2

Since EVO Online was first announced, fans and competitors have shown little faith in its success due to the different problems the main stage games have with online play. Come July; we’ll see whether EVO will be able to deliver a hitch-free online tournament.