Today, at the Amusement Expo in Tokyo Big Sight, Sega shared an announcement that will likely make many Virtua Fighter fans smile, the return to arcades of Virtua Fighter 3tb with Virtua Fighter 3tb Online.
While arcades have been ailing in the west for quite some time, they're still very active in Japan, and they have been recovering following the slowdown due to the pandemic.
Sega may have sold its iconic arcades, leading to the replacement of its familiar signs in high-traffic Tokyo areas like Akihabara, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro with the much more obscure Gigo, but this doesn't mean they have stopped making arcade games.
Virtua Fighter 3tb Online will land at Japanese arcades nationwide running on Sega's own ALL.Net P-ras MULTI Version 3 machines on November 28, bringing back a legend.
It's a renewed version of Virtua Fighter 3tb, which launched in the arcades in 1997 and then was released on the Dreamcast in 1998 as one of its launch games and one of its most successful titles in Japan.
It was itself an update of the original 1996 game Virtua Fighter 3, with the addition of team battles (hence "tb"). The new Online version will add online gameplay based on the technology matured with Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown.
You can check out the trailer below.
Virtua Fighter 3tb Online will also have an online service named VF3tb Online.NET that players will be able to use to check their match data and ranking on top of changing their nicknames and more.
On top of that, a two-disc soundtrack will be released in Japan on December 14 priced at 3,520 yen ($23.55 at the current exchange rate).
You may be wondering whether gamers on console and PC (especially in the West, which isn't likely to get the arcade machine in any widespread fashion) will get a piece of the fun, and while we won't get the Online version, Virtua Fighter 3tb will be included in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
Most of us won't get to play the game in real-world arcades, but at least we'll have plenty of time to enjoy it in the virtual arcades in the new adventure of Ichiban Kasuga and Kazuma Kiryu when it launches on January 26, 2024, for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
