We are only a couple of weeks away from the world’s largest fighting game tournament, and we now have the final registration numbers for EVO 2018.

The virtual doors closed on the registration period for this years fighting game extravaganza early Friday morning  and Dragon BallFighterZ has taken the crown for most entrants, with the veteran Street Fighter V following closely behind with 2,421 entrants.

2,530 players from around the world will compete in the EVO 2018’s DragonBall FighterZ tournament, according to the final numbers presented by the tournament’s organizer Joey Cuellar.

https://twitter.com/MrWiz/status/1020203089670782976

Interestingly, every title returning from last year’s competition has shown a slight decline in the number of people registering for this year’s tournament, with the exception of Tekken 7, who gained a little under 300 new players. While that sounds bad on the surface, a closer examination of the numbers show that overall registration for EVO 2018 increased over last year.

11,185 players registered to compete in the world’s largest fighting game tournament, compared to 10,082 who registered last year. This represents a growth rate of just under 11%!

The popularity of DragonBall FighterZ, which released in February of this year to universal acclaim, definitely has played a huge role in that growth, as has the surprising popularity of tournament newcomer, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, who doubled the title it replaced from last year – BlazBlue:Central Fiction.

It’s also worth noting that the number of entrants per game at EVO 2018 is pretty evenly distributed by title. Last year saw a drop off of 1,000 players between #1 Street Fighter V and #2 Super Smash Bros for Wii U.

EVO, also known as the Evolution Championship Series, is the world’s largest and most prestigious fighting game tournament held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This year’s event takes place August 3rd – 5th and NerdBacon  will be on location in Vegas to bring you all the biggest news from the event!