The worlds largest fighting game tournament is ready to evolve into the biggest, baddest, most extravagant tournament yet.

Evo Tournament founder Joey Cuellar was joined by Capcom’s “Combofiend” Mike Ross on Twitch this evening to announce the lineup for the Evo 2016 tournament, which will take place July 15th – 17th in Las Vegas Nevada.

Nine games will be played throughout the course of the Evo 2016 tournament, with old fan-favorites set to be joined by scrappy new-comers. This year’s title will include:

1. Street Fighter V
2. Super Smash Bros. Melee
3. Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
4. Guilty Gear XRD: Revelator
5. Mortal Kombat X
6. Pokken Tournament
7. Killer Instinct
8. Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
9. Tekken 7: Retribution.

The Evo 2016 event itself is set to expand this year, opting to move out of their long-time home at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino; opting to try a two venue approach for 2016.

Pokken Tournament will be one of the new combatants at Evo 2016

Tournaments taking place on Friday and Saturday of Evo 2016 will be held just down the road from the familiar Westgate at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

On Sunday, Cuellar said he planned to take Evo 2016 into “full e-sports mode” and will hold the final day’s tournaments, including the main event Street Fighter V championship, at the 12,000 seat Mandalay Bay Las Vegas Events Center. The expansion of Evo 2016 into two separate venues will mean that attendees will have to purchase two tickets in order to attend all the events, however, the move of the Sunday tournaments to the Mandalay Bay Events Center will mean that your purchased ticket will reserve you a seat no matter when you arrive.

Tickets for Evo 2016 have not gone on sale yet, so be sure to keep an eye out at the official website at Shoryuken.com.

In other interesting news, Namco Bandai took advantage of an “impromptu” Tekken 7: Retribution match to announce the latest addition to that games roster: Nina Williams, during tonight’s Evo 2016 announcement stream.

You can check out the reveal trailer down below.

If all this talk of Evo 2016 and fighting game tournaments has you in the mood to trade virtual blows, then you are in luck. There are a ton of great fighting games arriving in 2016 that have an eye of the tiger and the heart of a champion. You can read all about them right here. You can also read my commentary on why I think fighting games are the perfect genre to help e-sports break into the mainstream, here.

Are you excited for Evo 2016? Do you think This year’s Evo will be able to garner more attention for the fighting game community and e-sports as a whole? We have a nifty comments section below, so get down there and do what comes naturally.

Written by The Watchman

The Watchman is a journeyman gamer who has seen and played a good chunk of gaming history.
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