Virtua Fighter 3tb, SEGA’s massively popular arcade fighter game, is coming back to the Japanese arcades 25 years after it was initially released.
The announcement came from SEGA, with the publisher announcing the online version of this classic will be released through their ALL.Net arcade devices on November 28.
Virtua Fighter 3tb (team battle) was originally released by SEGA in Sept 1997. Initially, it was developed as an update for Virtua Fighter 3, a game that was released a year prior and received widespread appreciation. The game pulled 30,000 arcade sales for SEGA in the first year, with 18,000 units sold in Japan and 12,000 units sold overseas.
Virtua Fighter 3tb was created as an upgrade to introduce the new three-on-three team battle mode. The update was also well-received, with much praise for the new battle system as well as new skills included in the new version.
The new ‘Online’ version of Virtua Fighter 3tb will keep the original design and battle modes as they are while adding some new functionalities to stay true to its name. Players can expect online battles as well as online leaderboards.
To promote the revival of one of its classic titles, SEGA has launched a new website. This website will help the fans keep track of their online gameplay activity and check their rankings.
Virtua Fighter 3tb Will Feature Similar Online Gameplay Mechanics As 2021’s Ultimate Showdown
Virtua Fighter remains one of the strongest and commercially successful fighting game series for SEGA. The third instalment of the series was particularly liked by gamers. The subsequent installments, such as Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 5 (and its spin-offs, such as Final Showdown) received excellent reception.
Despite the glowing reviews for the final installment (Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown in 2010), SEGA stopped developing sequels for this popular series.
Only one new version of VF 5 was released for PS4 in 2021, called Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown. This version included superior and reworked graphics, new skill sets, new characters, balance changes, soundtrack, and gameplay mechanics.
Virtua Fighter 3tb Online is said to incorporate the same online battle mode functionalities of 2021’s VF 5: Ultimate Showdown. This will enable players across Japan to challenge each other to revisit this classic title.
Source – SEGA (via Twitter)
