The world’s biggest fighting game tournament just keeps getting bigger.
It’s going to be a big year for the most prestigious fighting game tournament in the world. Evo 2023 is breaking records and looks to be the largest it’s ever been.
It started when the official Evo Twitter page shared a post, saying that Street Fighter 6 has officially broken the all-time record for entrants. This was somewhat to be expected as Street Fighter 6, apart from the massive hype behind its launch, is also holding the first stop of the Capcom Pro Tour at Evo.
Then, a few days later, Evo released this tweet:
For anyone who needs context, this is the “It’s Over 9,000!” internet meme.
The last time the record for the number of entrants was broken was in Evo 2016, which also happened to be the launch year of Street Fighter 5.
That year had around 5,000 entrants for Street Fighter 5, more than double the entrants from the previous year. The implications of this tweet for the possible number of entrants for Street Fighter 6 are staggering.
Evo 2016 also saw record numbers of entrants in their other featured games such as Killer Instinct, Tekken 7, and both Super Smash Bros. Melee and Wii U. In total, there were roughly 15,000 competitors playing across nine different games that year, making it the largest Evo in history.
Not to be outdone, a recent tweet from Evo announced that Guilty Gear Strive beat its previous year’s number of entrants. Last year saw 2,158 entrants in Strive, previously the highest number ever, and now it has the second most entrants right after Street Fighter 6.
Sign-ups are still ongoing until July 10. At their current trajectory, it’s easy to imagine that Evo 2023 will break their record number of competitors in 2016. It’s an impressive feat for an organization that started as another Street Fighter 2 tournament in 1996.
The Mandalay Bay Convention Center is going to be absolutely packed when Evo opens its doors later this August.
Banner photo from Robert Paul.
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