The full and final lineup of games being hosted by the Evolution Championship Series (EVO 2022) has been officially unveiled with some new inclusions.
Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition and Tekken 7 are naturally returning as staples of the fighting tournament. Besides them are Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate, The King of Fighters 15, Guilty Gear Strive, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Skullgirls 2nd Encore, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and Melty Blood: Type Lumina. The last three games particularly making their main stage debut at EVO 2022.
Super Smash Bros. is notably missing from that lineup. The game was confirmed last month to be skipping EVO 2022 on the decision of Nintendo, making it two times in a row for Super Smash Bros. to abandon EVO. The abandonment has been speculated to stem from Nintendo partnering with another esports brand called PandaGlobal to create “the first officially licensed circuit for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Super Smash Bros. Melee to North America.”
A schedule will be announced once all sign-ups have closed. The game with the most amount of registrations will close the event while the game with the least will open EVO 2022. The closing honor will presumably be in the hands of either Street Fighter 5 or Tekken 7 based on their enormous fighting communities.
EVO 2022 will take place from August 5 through to August 7, 2022 at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas. This will be the first in-person event after EVO went online-only for its past two iterations due to the rampaging COVID-19 pandemic. EVO 2020 actually never took off because it got cancelled in part due to sexual misconduct allegations against co-founder Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar.
EVO 2022 now looks to be back in full form. The tournament organizer has rented out 50 percent more space on the show floor to host community events, an entire arcade section, and booths for artists to market their wares.
