It’s been a long-standing tradition that Street Fighter closes the Evo championships. While lots of games are played at the tournament, those who win Street Fighter are often considered the winners of the entire event. Today, Evo head Joey Cuellar released the final schedule for next month’s fighting game tournament and has the surprise that Street Fighter has been usurped this year as the final event. In its place is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
The news came out of a tweet which doesn’t really give reasoning for the change.
https://twitter.com/MrWiz/status/1153323251906465793
However, we can assume that Smash’s record-breaking numbers for the game contribute quite a bit. It’s also likely that Street Fighter V’s somewhat stagnant last year also didn’t do it any favors, started by Evil Ryu-like Kage as the only character released this season.
While Dragon Quest’s Hero has missed the deadline to be included in the Evo festivities, that doesn’t preclude Nintendo from making new announcements of DLC characters at the event. As the final game on Sunday usually gets some kind of reveal, this wouldn’t be shocking.
Evo takes place in Las Vegas on August 2 through 4.