17 Upcoming 2023 Fighting Games

Orbitals

Platform fighters don’t have a lot of options right now, but thanks to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, they probably don’t need much more. Still, since MultiVersus is going dark until early 2024 and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl isn’t very good, players don’t have much to try out. The next best thing for them to do would be to check out the independent scene, where they could find games like Orbitals. Alleyway Games made the game, and a demo of it can be played on Steam. Players move through the rounds by controlling their own gravity.

So, they can stay on the top or switch to the sides to catch their opponents off guard when they miss. In each stage, they can pick up and use different tools, and monsters and other creatures are waiting to attack anyone who gets too close. The demo has a tutorial, a multiplayer fight mode, and online play through Steam’s Remote Play Together. The full game will have a story mode, a P2P online mode and matchmaking, and many more monsters, moves, and special abilities.

Blazing Worldstars

Even though the last few flashy 2D series, like King of Fighters and Guilty Gear, have been in 3D for a very long time, there are still some people who miss the smooth animation of sprites. People like Bloodrune Entertainment, which made Blazing Worldstars, a furry fighting game. The full release date of the game hasn’t been set yet, but Bloodrune has been giving out usable demos since 2022.

The game has a 6-button scheme and parries like Street Fighter, but it aims to have rush combos like KOF, where players have to be quick to keep their chains going. On top of that, it has the Enhance System, which is like Street Fighter 5’s V-Triggers in that each character gets their own special buff. Some could get super armor to take more hits or whole new sets of moves to get the upper hand on their opponents. It’s an interesting independent game that players should keep an eye on.

Trajes Fatais: Suits Of Fate

Trajes Fatais: Suits of Fate was made by Onanim Studio and Valente Studio, who were also inspired by SNK’s best fighting game series. Like Blazing Worldstars, it has only a “coming soon” announcement, so we don’t know when it will come out. But people can also try out a test to see how it works. So far, it has a strange story in which the characters are held prisoner by an entity and must use skills based on their dreams and wishes to break out.

Like KOF, the game has four buttons: two for regular attacks and two for special strikes. Then it adds a touch of Guilty Gear because its super meter, called the Gana Meter, can be used to stop moves like Guilty Gear’s Roman Cancels. When a player is close to death, they can use their Gana Meter as a second life bar and the cost of their super moves goes down. If the smooth graphics that look like they came from the 1990s don’t draw people in, the gaming will.

Final Fury

In Synth Riders, Kluge Interactive gave VR users a new and fun way to dance. Now, with Final Fury, they want to do the same thing for fighting games. Over the years, different studios have tried to take fighters in a first-person and motion-control way. Teleroboxer for the Virtual Boy and the infamous Fighters Uncaged for the Xbox 360 Kinect are both examples of this.

Final Fury plans to be bigger, with free-roaming 3D stages where you can race around to get the upper hand while throwing punches and special moves based on gestures. It will have more familiar ways to control things, like life bars and a super meter, but the way characters pull off attacks is likely to be different from how frame data usually works. It is set to come out in 2023 on all major VR devices.

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising

Granblue Fantasy Versus, which came out in 2020, was ArcSystem Works’ fighting take on Cygames’ RPG series. Its sequel, which will come out later in 2023, is for people who didn’t get to play Granblue Fantasy Versus the first time. Everyone from the first game is back, along with new characters Anila and Siegfried and other people who were supposed to be in the first game but weren’t.

They won the GBVS Cygames Cup Special poll, which guarantees them a spot in Granblue Fantasy Versus. But they were moved to the front of the story in the sequel. Which could be a good thing, since the goal is to make it a more full release. The game will have rollback netcode and crossplay, as well as autocombo-like Triple Attacks and new Dash Attacks like those in Under Night In-Birth and French Bread’s other top fights.

King Of Fighters 13

How can a game that is 13 years old be called new? The game’s crazy detailed and animated graphics have held up amazingly well over time, but its original direction was sadly not able to last. It took too long to make, and the money it made back at the time wasn’t enough, especially when compared to titles like KOF 12. So, KOF 14 and 15 look a lot worse than KOF 13. But they were made faster and helped bring the series and SNK back to life.

Even so, KOF 13 is a great game, and the Global Match version will give it a new lease on life. This new port’s online play will use rollback netcode, which should make it much easier than the original ports. The game will come out for the PS4 and the Nintendo Switch. But its release date isn’t set until late 2023. But in June 2023, it went through an open beta test that was well accepted. If everything goes well, it might be soon.

Project L

Some of the things on this list are here because fans want to know more about how they grew up. Project L isn’t even the real name of the free-to-play fighting game. It is the name Riot Games Inc. gave to the game they are making as a spin-off from League of Legends. Since the project has been quiet since it was first shown, it’s likely that it won’t be done until 2024. But what we know about it so far is very interesting.

It’s a tag-based game where the two “champions” can do the standard tricks like tagging in and out, assist attacks. And the “Dynamic Save” where the Assist character breaks an opponent’s combo. It also blends the way you play League of Legends with the way meter-based fighting games work when you use different Abilities. So far, figures like Ahri, Darius, Katarina, and Jinx, the game’s unofficial mascot, have been confirmed.

Garou: Mark Of The Wolves 2

The first Garou: Mark of the Wolves game didn’t get as much attention as it should have. The game was fun to play and had beautiful graphics. Even though it ran on much slower hardware, it was just as good as Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. In the early 2000s, a sequel was in the works, but it was dropped, leaving the story of Rock Howard unfinished. So, fans of fighting games were thrilled when SNK stated that it would finally get a sequel after 20 years or more.

It probably won’t come out in 2023, but there will be more news about it in the coming months. At the moment, all that is known is that Rock Howard, Terry Bogard, his brother Andy. And old fighting partner Joe Higashi will all be back in action. You can be sure that more well-known figures from the Garou and Fatal Fury games will join them.

Varvarion

Even though fist fights are fine, some people would rather their attackers have weapons. Even though there aren’t many good weapons fighters beyond Samurai Shodown and Soulcalibur. They have a lot of personality and movement. Varvarion from Polygonomicon aims to add to the number of games in this subgenre by mixing 3D sword-fighting action with anime-style stunts and graphics.

As players get used to their tools, they move around the stage and fight grunts and other enemies. As well as each other. To get the upper hand, they won’t be able to just hack and slash. Instead, they will have to learn how to dodge, block, and strike back. Varvarion looks like just another cartoon fighter, but it’s more complicated than it looks. It just needs a release date and more information to get people interested.

Die By The Blade

Another problem with fighting games with weapons is that strikes that look like they could be deadly aren’t always that dangerous. In Soulcalibur, characters chop, stab, and pierce each other many times, but they are more annoyed than badly hurt. Die By the Blade fixes this by taking its cue from the cult classic PS1 battle Bushido Blade. Where all you have to do to win (or lose) is hit the right spots at the right time.

One sword swipe to the neck or point to the gut can be enough to kill a character. Slices to other parts of the body can hurt a character so much that they can’t attack or move. It’s a cool samurai-punk setting with a serious, more realistic take on weapon fights. The game was supposed to come out in 2021. But now it will come out in 2023 for PC and devices.

God Of Rock

Fighting games and rhythm games have a few things in common, like how combos and chain hits are a big part of both. Still, since Slap Happy Rhythm Busters on the PS1, no one has tried to combine the two. At least until God of Rock, which is coming out soon from Maximum Games.

In the game, the best artists in the world fight each other by keeping time with their beats while hitting each other. There are more than 40 songs to learn. And each of the 12 characters has their own harmonic and fighting styles. It finally came out on April 18, 2023. And the way it mixed genres showed that it had a lot of promise. But it needed some updates to work better on PC, and it’s hard to play on screens with less space.

Fraymakers

Since Super Smash Bros. became so popular, platform fighters have carved out their own niche. For a while, Nintendo’s brawler was the only game in town. With MultiVersus and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl adding more animals to the fight, there are now a few more options. Fraymakers does the same thing, but with characters from independent video games. It has controls like Smash Bros and a cast like Indie Pogo. Octodad, Welltaro from Downwell, Commander Video from Bit.Trip Runner, and more are all in the cast.

The game will even have characters from Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, I Wanna Be the Guy, and VVVVVV as Assist characters, among others. It’s like the original Smash, but with a new set of fan-favorite games. The full game is set to come out in 2025. But people have been able to play it since January 18, 2023. Even though this won’t be exactly the same as the finished version. It’s a good way to see how it’s coming along.

Guilty Gear Strive Season 2

ArcSystem Works is on the right track. Dragon Ball FighterZ, the game that makes them the most money, will get a next-gen update for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, along with rollback netcode (if they can fix their current online problems). While the second season of DLC for Guilty Gear Strive is finally over. It brought back Bridget and Sin Kiske from Guilty Gear XX and added two new characters. Well, not too old.

Who’s the bedman? is the metal bedframe that Bedman (no question mark) uses. Now that the boy is gone, the frame keeps his younger sister Delilah safe while she hangs out on the field. Asuka R#, the legendary “That Man” or “Gearmaker” who has been talked about since Guilty Gear X, will be the last character to return in May 2023. ArcSys has promised a Season 3 for the game. So other fan picks like Venom and Answer still have a chance.

King Of Fighters 15 Season 2

Fans will have to wait for Garou 2, but KOF 15’s second season won’t be out for long. SNK said that it would add new characters, change the game’s balance. And add cross-platform play, starting with beta tests in the spring. Fans won’t have to wait long for the first changes to the squad. Shingo Yabuki, who is Ryu to Kyo Kusanagi’s Dan, will come back to Snow Rider 3D. So will Kim Kaphwan, who likes Tae Kwon Do and is interested in doing the right thing.

It turns out that they aren’t part of a team. Instead, each of them fights alone. But they have some interesting friends with them. In KOF 14, Sylvie Paula Paula will be back in the summer with some new goth clothes. Along with the Arabian vigilante Najd. Goenitz, the boss of KOF ’96, is now also available as a free update, just like last year’s Omega Rugal. There will also be two more new figures in the fall and winter. One looks like Duo Lon from KOF 2003–2013, and the other looks like a young girl in a skirt.

Tekken 8

Bandai-Namco plans to release the next Tekken game in 2023, even though it was mentioned rather late in 2022. It’s a next-gen game that you can play on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It has a lot of new features that set it apart from Tekken 7, which was a great game. With “Heat” features that boost the player’s strength, attack chains, and speed, the game will encourage more aggressive play.

They can smash them into danger zones to do more damage, or they can lock them into Heat Smashes. Which are like super combos, or the returning Rage Arts. Players can now take chip damage by default, but unlike in 2D fights, they can’t die from it. So far, many fan favorites, from Paul and Law to Asuka and Leroy, have come back. Not to mention Jun Kazama, who shows up in an official series for the first time since Tekken 2. Even before the game comes out, there will be even more shocks.

Mortal Kombat 1

Fans probably thought that Netherrealm Studios’ next game would be Injustice 3 or something else that wasn’t a fighting game. Instead, word got out about their plans for a new Mortal Kombat game during a Warner Bros. earnings call. Which gave the game a Q4 2023 release date. After that, Netherrealm put out a video that showed a clock going past 11 and then jumping quickly to 1 o’clock.

It showed that Mortal Kombat 12 would actually be Mortal Kombat 1, a reboot set in the new world made by the Fire God Liu Kang. Now, Liu Kang will help Kung Lao and a human Raiden fight the threats from Outworld. He will do this by getting Johnny Cage, Kenshi, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion to join him. As Kameo Fighters, old figures like Stryker, Sonya, Cyrax, and Jax will join fan favorites like Kitana, Mileena, Rain, and Smoke to help players fight. On September 19, 2023, the full game will come out.

Street Fighter 6

People didn’t want to give SF5 a second chance because the first time they saw it, they didn’t like it. So, Capcom made sure that Street Fighter 6 would be a lot more popular. For casual fans, there are optional controls that are easier to use and a Party Mode. For long-time fans, there are the standard, complicated setup and online modes. All wrapped up in a bright new art style and soundtrack. Characters like Chun Li and Guile are back, and so are new ones like the kung fu master Jamie and the Greco-Roman powerhouse Marisa, who fans have really taken to.

Since then, the game has come out, and players really liked how easy it was to get started and how fun and creative the World Tour mode was, which let them take their own characters out into the world. All that’s left to see is its DLC. SF5’s Rashid will be back this summer, and a new character named AKI will join the race in the fall. Then, in 2024, the power demon Akuma will return in the spring. And the story will end with SF5’s Ed in the winter.SF6 has set a high bar that will be hard for even the best games in the genre to beat.