In a surprising turn of events, 2026 will be a year filled with new fighting game releases. It’s one of those rare cases where the Fighting Game Community, a corner of gaming that has always been niche, will have too much to catch up on, which is a brilliant problem to have. Esports games for 2026 seem to be in a great space, nonetheless.
Still, given the time required to learn fighting games, the likelihood is that most players will have to pick one or two options. These new fighting games will also need to compete with the massive names still going strong, like Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6, but with the quality of the titles coming out, they might have a fair shot.