What fighting game announcements are likely happening at The Game Awards 2024?

It’s that time of year again where we celebrate games and their creators both big and small with a heaping helping of new announcements spread across multiple hours of broadcasting to keep people watching.

The Game Awards 2024 is set to begin in less than 24 hours on December 12, which usually brings with it a slew of new fighting game reveals, but what is most likely to show up for this go around?

We’re expecting to see at least a few new trailers and announcements starting from the pre-show, which is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. ET, and potentially last through the full event that ran for three and a half hours last year.

Only one of them has been confirmed, however, with quite a few other major titles having new DLC content and titles on the horizon they’d likely want to showcase to a larger audience.

As for the awards themselves, Tekken 8, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, MultiVersus and the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection are all up for Best Fighting Game.

Tekken is also nominated for Best Multiplayer Game as well up against Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Helldivers 2, Super Mario Party Jamboree and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

But enough of all that, let’s talk about what reveals could be coming starting with the most likely of all.

Bandai Namco has the only confirmed fighting game announcement that we’re aware of currently for The Game Awards to unveil their last DLC character of Season 1 for Tekken 8.

Although Anna Williams was already teased at the Tekken World Tour Finals, it seems she may more likely kick off Season 2.

We believe there’s a very high likelihood the final Season 1 character will be a guest fighter, and you can find much more on that in our recent Tekken crossover pick story to see who has the best shot of making it in.

Although they haven’t confirmed anything for the show, The Game Awards would be a really good place for Bandai Namco to show off what they’ve been working on for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero considering it is up for Best Fighting Game too.

The Season Pass is said to have over 20 playable new characters (presumably including transformations), but they’ve only shown Gamma 1 and 2 from Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and Glorio and Vegeta (Mini) from Dragon Ball Daima in just their artwork.

With the game being out a few months now, it’s probably time to start showing off those new fighters in action.

And fans are definitely ready to see Beast Gohan and Orange Piccolo in Sparking Zero too.

This was originally going to be quite a bit lower on the list, but that changed earlier today.

An open beta test for Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. appeared to leak online a little while ago, so busting that announcement out at The Game Awards would be a smart move to raise awareness for the upcoming title and get more people in the door to try the series for the first time for free.

Since we’re getting this as another updated version of VF5, however, this means a true Virtua Fighter 6 is probably still years off from being revealed / released.

But maybe this is all meant to build hype for a grander return sooner than expected.

We already know Fatal Fury’s Mai Shiranui is the next DLC character coming to Street Fighter 6 Season 2, and she’s due out sometime this Winter.

She would have been much higher on the list here, but Capcom just dropped Mai’s teaser trailer last week in an unexpected move.

The developer has continued strong ties with Geoff Keighley’s game shows over the past few years and even revealing the Season 2 DLC cast at the Summer Games Fest this year, so we’re not ruling out more for The Game Awards.

Perhaps they were just getting the teaser out of the way to offer up a second teaser or gameplay trailer this week… or maybe they’ll just end up showing the same teaser again.

NetherRealm Studios is basically in the exact same boat as Capcom for this event as well.

Mortal Kombat 1’s next DLC character for Khaos Reigns is Conan the Barbarian, and Ed Boon showed off a brief teaser of him last week too.

NetherRealm also has longtime ties Keighley’s shows, so there could be more footage of Conan in action or his interactions with others on the cast.

But it’s hard to really say at this point.

Arc System Works did reveal Elphelt at The Game Awards last year (though technically she was leaked early), so they could do the same here in Guilty Gear Strive Season 4.

Venom is slated to come to the game sometime in early 2025 this Winter, so it’d be more of a wait than Elphelt, who released right after the announcement, but this would still be the place to get the most eyes on the blind fighter.

Or perhaps ArcSys will hold him back another week for CEOtaku 2024 where the developer usually brings something to show for their fighters.

Season 1 content for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising wrapped up a little while back with Vikala, but ArcSys and Cygames already confirmed there’s more on the way.

Since Versus Rising is also nominated for Best Fighting Game, it would be a good idea for them to offer up a much better look at Sandalphon, who’d been one of the most requested characters since the original fighter launched.

Though again maybe they’ll save him for CEOTaku or more likely save Sandalphon for the Granblue Fantasy Fes 2024 in Japan next week.

Fatal Fury would have been much higher on our list since SNK has also been a regular on Keighley’s shows the past few years, but we’ve got some doubts now with the timing.

The Game Awards are going down at the same time that SNK is releasing Vice and Mature for The King of Fighters 15 alongside a big new balance update, so we’re not sure the developers want to steal any thunder from their own current title.

City of the Wolves does still have like five more characters to reveal before launching next April, so there is a decent chance.

We’re just not really willing to put down money on it or get our hopes too high right now.

Although it was slated to originally be out by the end of 2024, Hunter x Hunter’s fighting game got delayed to add rollback netcode and more polish.

While we technically already know the full starting roster for Nen Impact, there’s still a few characters remaining left to receive actual trailers.

So perhaps we could see Morel and or Kite show up sometime in the pre-show tomorrow though we’re not putting much stock there.

That definitely seems like the type of reveal ArcSys would hold for CEOtaku or a different anime-focused event.

This completes all the fighting games we believe could show up with new reveals for The Game Awards in just a matter of hours, but let us know what you think / hope is coming and if we forgot anything.

You can watch the award show stream alongside us tomorrow, and we’ll be updating stories and information as they occur.