Riichiro Yamada, producer of Ryu Ga Gotoku’s Virtua Fighter Crossroads, opened up about his surprising inspiration for reviving the highly-anticipated fighting game series after so many years.
Speaking with GamerBraves, Yamada revealed that his creative spark for the newest Virtua Fighter title was lit by none other than HBO’s Watchmen series, calling it his “biggest inspiration” for the game – less so because of the story itself, but more so because of how it managed to bring a 33-year-old comic back into the mainstream.
“Virtua Fighter, the series, has been very long. It has its own lore, it has its own settings that have been there, but [it] has never been used for decades and for 20 plus years,” he told the outlet.
“Watchmen was a very old American comics story which was revived as a drama 40 years-plus after,” he continued. “For me, I thought it was very similar to the situation with Virtua Fighter, and it told me a lot about how to modernize the old settings, the old story, and then revive it.”
From what we’ve seen thus far, Virtua Fighter Crossroads will boast an narrative-driven story mode helmed by a team of industry veterans. Yamada explained that RGG wanted to branch out from its usual storytelling methodology with this game, saying they wanted to expand Virtua Fighter’s existing lore.
“We wanted to do something different from RGG in terms of style or method of the story,” he said. “We wanted to tell the story more, and we wanted to have the player be more immersed into the game and feel the narrative.”
Those who are cutscene-averse need not worry, though; Yamada clarified that he wants fans to experience the story themselves through gameplay, rather than relying on cutscenes alone to tell the tale.
“A lot of people won’t be just satisfied with nice cuts in the game, and pretty scenes or pretty cinematics,” he said. “It’s way better if you can play through it and understand the story by yourself.”
He went on to confirm that Crossroads takes place “10 to 20 years” after the events of Virtua Fighter 5, with a focus on showing the “comeback” of the series’ classic characters after being “almost forgotten” in the game’s universe.
Virtua Fighter Crossroads is set to release in 2027, though no specific date has yet been established.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
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