Evo Weekend Is Here: How To Watch The Fighting Game Event Of The Year

After a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus, the Evolution Championship Series (better known as simply Evo), the annual celebration of fighting games, is back in Las Vegas this weekend. Thousands of fighting game players and fans will fill the halls and arena at the Mandalay Bay casino to try their hand at a top 8 finish, play casual games with people from all over the world, view panels, browse Artist Alley and just generally enjoying a chance to be offline with the fighting game community again.

In a more normal year I would be there myself maybe not trying for that top 8 finish more just trying not to go 0-2 Street Fighter V or third trick. But despite a robust mask and vaccine policy, I just don’t feel like traveling or being in Vegas with the current state of the world. So I’m going to spend my weekend cozy at home streaming a ridiculous amount of content and trying not to feel like I’m missing out on too much. If you’d like to join me, here’s a quick guide to what the weekend has to offer.

An Evo overview

You may have heard of Evo before, perhaps the infamous Evo Moment 37 video or Sony’s takeover of the tournament series in 2021. If you’re not a fighting game tournament watcher yet, here are the basics of how Evo works. There are eight main games, which I’ll list below, as well as a host of less official side tournaments. Every game has the same basic structure, you start in a pool of players, everyone on an equal footing. Tournaments are double elimination meaning you have to lose twice to be out. If you can win multiple matches in your pool without being eliminated, you will progress to the next, eventually leading to a top 24, then a top 8, leading to the grand final.

Part of the excitement of watching pools is the disruption. The previous champion has to start the same as everyone else, and there’s no guarantee that an unknown won’t give them their first loss, putting them in the loser league and one game away from losing that top 8 repeat dream.

As you get further into the matches, the game level gets higher and more tense, so if you’re less inclined to watch for hours, the safe bet is to grab a top 24 or wait for the top 8 to see the real high. -Stakes matches are played.

Each game will feature commentary from people who are experts at understanding and explaining the on-screen action. With a few basics under your belt and their patterns, you should be able to keep up with even games you’re not familiar with.

The key to understanding the double elimination format is that everyone starts in the winner’s bracket. Once you lose, you go to the losers bracket. Lose from there and you can sit down and watch the rest, you’re done. Mathematically, this means that when you get to the top 8, half are in the losers and half are in the winners scale, and the grand finale has a winner side and a loser side.

To win the entire tournament on the part of the loser, you must beat the other player twice, once to send them to the loser (also known as reset bracket). Making a loser’s run is no easy task, but a bracket reset always creates hype. They love an underdog, but it also means a different set to watch.

Seeing an L or a W next to someone’s name on the stream overlay indicates whether he or she is playing from the winner’s or the loser’s bracket. The last thing useful to know is that most games are played as first to two, so you have to win two games to beat someone. This will generally be the first to three wins in the top 8.

The games

This year the main games on Evo are:

• Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
• Guilty Gear Endeavor
• Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate
• Tekken 7
• The King Of Fighters XV
• Melty Blood: Type Lumina
• Dragon Ball FighterZ
• Granblue Fantasy: Versus
• Skullgirls: 2nd encore

All games will stream on Twitch starting Friday, August 5 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. A fully interactive schedule of all games can be found here. Half of the matches have top 8’s from the main hall on Saturday. The other four (king of fighters, Tekken, street fighterand Guilty Gear) will have their top 8 on Sunday at the Mandalay Bay arena.

There are also community run tournaments for an additional 52 titles, everything from the alternate World War II title Akatsuki Blitzkampfto barely-a-fighting-like-frisbee-air-hockey Neo Geo classic windjammers. A list of all 52 games and a summary of the viewer’s guide for each can be found here, so check that out if you want to delve into the wider range of titles you may not be familiar with.