The largest and longest-running fighting game tournament, EVO 2017, is coming back to Las Vegas in July with kicks and punches galore.
According to a trailer released yesterday, EVO 2017 will run from July 14-16. The tournament will be taking place entirely at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, the same place where EVO 2016’s Sunday final matches were. The arena is known for holding everything from concerts, boxing matches, to the GRAMMY Awards, and more recently it’s started holding eSports events. Parts of EVO 2016 and last year’s North American League of Legends Spring Finals both took place there.
Last year, EVO was at the Las Vegas Convention Centre for the bulk of the time, and only went to the Mandalay Bay arena for Sunday’s final top 8 games. Joey Cuellar, the head organizer for EVO, announced on Twitter that they won’t be switching venues this time around.
EVO 2017 hasn’t confirmed any games yet, but the trailer includes fan favourites such as Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat X, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. These are franchises with decently sized fanbases and they’ve also been a part of the previous EVO’s, so it’s likely they’ll be back at next year’s event.
EVO is a tournament open to all people no matter how good they are, and it allows players from around the world to test out their competitive skills in an arena full of hype. It originally started out as a 40-man Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo tournament called “Battle of the Bay.” In 2002 it rebranded as the Evolution Championship Series, and started opening up to more fighting games such as Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2.
