Your Guide To Evo 2026: Why The Games Are Changing, Attendance Is Down, But The Spirit Endures

The biggest fighting game tournament of the year has gotten a bit smaller in 2026. Evo 2026 runs from Friday, June 26th to Sunday, June 28th and you can watch the broadcast on one of 10 different Twitch channels. The tournament boasts an expanded lineup of 12 games with 2KXO, Riot Games’ foray into fighting games, on the lineup.

This is not the first Evo event since the series came under the ownership of the Saudi Arabian government late last year. However, it is the first in the United States (taking place, as usual, in Las Vegas), and it seems to be the one most impacted by both the new owners and the larger economical and logistical implications of hosting a major international event in the U.S. Still, Evo is where the fighting game community and the spirit of competition shine brightest, so here’s a preview of what’s to come.

Evo 2026 Numbers Are Way Down

One of the biggest hallmarks of Evo 2026 is that registration numbers are precipitously down. At last year’s Evo, there were 8,541 competitors. This year that number has dropped over 30 percent to 5,774. In 2025, Street Fighter 6, by far the most popular game of the tournament and the one which traditionally closes out the show, boasted 4,228 competitors. This year, that number has almost been cut in half.

There are several reasons for this. Evo is an international competition and right now, the United States isn’t being the most friendly to its international guests. Additionally, Evo’s expanded the tournaments beyond Las Vegas and Japan to include France and Singapore, with the possibility of even more, giving international competitors the option to compete closer to home without the hassle of trying to secure a U.S. travel visa. With costs rising on everything everywhere, travel and lodging have become prohibitively expensive even for people who live within the United States. And finally, there’s the animosity for Evo’s Saudi Arabian owners, which has seen at least two high-profile fighting game commentators publicly state they’ll no longer be participating in Evo events. The fighting game community (FGC) is a queer community, too, and no doubt the change in ownership has caused a lot of people to just stay home.

However, the tournament isn’t without its international or queer stars. Japanese Street Fighter legend Daigo Umehara will be competing in Street Fighter 6. Arslan Ash, the Pakistani Tekken player who’s won a ridiculous seven Evo championships, will also be in attendance. SonicFox, defender of trans rights themself, will also compete, playing duos in 2KXO. When SonicFox and their duo partner Inzem competed in 2KXO at Combo Breaker earlier this year, they did so under the trans flag. And though it’s highly unlikely given who owns the tournament and all, I hope they do so again.

Evo 2026 Lineup Of Games

In Evos past, the main lineup was eight or nine of the most popular games. This year that lineup has been extended to feature 12 games. While the bigger list of games is great, it comes at the expense of Evo eliminating a bunch of tournaments for smaller games that were often featured on stream during the event’s off hours while the bigger games churned through their thousands of players. Mortal Kombat is a notable name missing this year, likely because the number of entrants for that game has dwindled to embarrassingly low numbers despite being only three years old. Compare that to Guilty Gear Strive, which is five years old this year and still managed to crack the top six games by registration numbers. Invincible VS makes its Evo debut and while Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls isn’t out yet, it’ll get an exhibition tournament that concludes Friday night. You can peruse the full schedule here, and here’s a list of all 12 games that’ll be featured during Evo 2026.

Street Fighter 6
Tekken 8
2KXO
Rivals of Aether II
Guilty Gear Strive
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
Invincible VS
Vampire Savior
BlazBlue: Central Fiction
Under Night In-Birth II Sys: Celes (don’t ask, I don’t get it either)
Virtua Fighter 5 Revo World Stage

2KXO Makes Its Evo Las Vegas Debut

2KXO, the fighting game version of League of Legends, has gotten off to a rocky start. Shortly after its console launch, developer Riot Games laid off roughly half its development team, citing poorer-than-anticipated reception. In the blog post announcing the layoffs, Riot said it remains committed to 2KXO’s competitive schedule, sticking the game in major and minor tournaments around the world. The most interesting thing about 2KXO is the ability to compete alone or in duos. The tag-team fighter has a mechanic by which two people can control the two different characters on a team, which can lead to 2v1 matches that make for an entertaining watch. It bodes well that 2KXO is the game with the third most entrants, behind fighting game juggernauts Street Fighter and Tekken. Hopefully its Top 8 matches which take place on Sunday afternoon will expose more people to the game and drum up the players Riot apparently needs to keep supporting it.

Evo 2026 will be 2KXO’s biggest tournament yet and if you’ll permit me to prognosticate a bit, there’s a good chance SonicFox and his duo partner Inzem will win it all.

Rivals of Aether II: The Game No One Saw Coming

This year, the top six games by registration numbers will have their Top 8 matches featured on the Evo main stage arena while the rest will play out on the less prestigious (but no less hype) showcase stage. With 12 games competing for six slots, it was a bit of a horse race watching registration numbers rise to see which games would get prime placing. With the Evo 2026 schedule solidified, the top six games have been set with two interesting outliers: 2KXO and Rivals of Aether II.

2KXO is brand new, with the hefty weight of its developer, Riot Games, behind it. Rivals of Aether II, though, is not a game anybody expected to see make the cut. Though the presence of this 2024 platform fighter in the top six is surprising, the franchise has had a presence at Evo before in what was formerly known as the extended lineup. Evo is more than just the big-name games like Street Fighter and Tekken, and the extended lineup was where smaller, less well-known games could be a part of the Evo action, too.

Last year, Rivals of Aether II topped the extended lineup with 358 registrants. This year, it has over 1000. That’s some incredible growth in a single year, so much so that there are concerns in the FGC that it wasn’t wholly organic. Rivals of Aether II is published by Offbrand Games, which is owned in part by Twitch streamer and former Smash Bros. commentator Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren. On X, Ludwig stated that he wanted Rivals II to have its biggest tournament yet and that he was willing to pay to make that happen.

“To clarify I did buy a bunch of EVO passes to help make this the biggest Rivals 2 tournament we’ve ever had,” he wrote in the post. “We handed passes to the top 128 players, ran online qualifiers, ran locals, and gave passes to [tournament organizers] to give out to their community.”

I'm seeing a some people are upset at the placement for Rivals of Aether 2 at EVO
For anyone unaware, I am the publisher for that game

I also remember being in the crowd at EVO 2016 and watching hungrybox beat armada through losers

It was a seminal weekend for me. I returned…

— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren) May 26, 2026

The FGC is split by Ludwig’s admission. Some feel this is a demonstration of Ludwig’s commitment to the FGC, showing that he’s willing to essentially put his money where his mouth is to support the game. Others feel like this will hurt the tournament, stealing a main stage spot from another game.

No Matter What, Evo’s Always A Good Watch

More than Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game(s) Fest or The Game Awards, Evo is my gamer Christmas. It’s a bunch of people from around the world coming together to play some Good Ass Tekken and then some. Despite the many issues plaguing this 2026 event, there is no better celebration of the way games bring us together than Evo.