EVO 2024 happened in Las Vegas last weekend and the Super Bowl of the Fighting Gaming Community crowned numerous eight champions from a prospective pool of over ten thousand participants. During the course of the show, the tournament also revealed several expansions as well as a new event to commemorate some of the winners of the past.
So before we reveal these new events here’s a list of the 2024 EVO champions.
- King of Fighters XV – Zhuojun “Xiaohai” Zeng (China)
- Mortal Kombat 1 – Dominique “SonicFox” McLean (USA)
- Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes – Masaki “Senaru” Inoue (Japan)
- Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike – Jo “MOV” Egami (Japan)
- Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising – Aaron “AARONDAMAC” Godinez (USA)
- Guilty Gear -Strive- – Shamar “Nitro” Hinds (USA)
- Tekken 8 – Arslan “Arslan Ash” Ash
- Street Fighter 6 – Victor “Punk” Woodley (USA)
Many fantastic stories came out of these brackets, such as Xioahai and Arslan Ash winning back to back EVOs, SonicFox winning his 7th EVO tying the legendary Justin Wong for 2nd place in overall wins, and of course the moment of the show, Punk winning SF6 after coming in 2nd place last year. Some moments even came from players who didn’t quite hoist a trophy, such as the showmanship and skills of Ryuji “Hayao” Hayashi in 3rd Strike and outside of the tournament Lily “LiliPichu” Ki defeating Katsuhiro Harada (Executive Producer of Tekken 8) in the Sajam Slam: Beat a Pro challenge.
It also looks like there will be even more opportunities to create these types of moments as EVO revealed that the tournament will be expanding abroad, adding an event in Nice, France that will occur in October next year and starting in 2026 an event in Singapore. While EVO in Vegas will always be THE event for the FGC, these expansions will surely allow those looking to make their name on the scene a more affordable means of participating. While looking towards the future, the tournament will also honor its past as they will host the first EVO Awards in Los Angeles January 2025.
While it is fun to watch EVO from home, there’s certainly something different about watching the tournament in person. Hopefully this will be the first of many EVO attendances for me and perhaps we might see some familiar faces on stage in the future (Brendan is supposedly going to train in SF6 after being inspired by Punk’s performance).
EVO 2025 will be happening in Las Vegas Aug 1st to 3rd 2025, in addition to EVO Nice, EVO Japan will take place May 9th to 11th 2025.
