'Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite' News: Capcom's Newest Fighter Not Featured in EVO 2018
In a surprising, or perhaps unsurprising, turn of events, "Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite" will not be a main tournament in this year's Evolution Championship Series, making this the first year that a "Marvel vs Capcom" game was not one of the featured games since 2000, when the series debuted in the tournament with "Marvel vs Capcom 2."
The Evolution Championship Series, or EVO for short, is by far one of the biggest annual fighting game tournaments in the community. Contestants travel from all around the world just to participate and compete for the championship.
During a livestream yesterday, the tournament organizers officially announced the main games featured in this year's tournament, and it seems "Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite" failed to make the cut.
When prompted for a reason as to why this year's EVO will not be featuring Capcom's latest "Versus" fighter, Joey Cuellar, the head of EVO, talked about how the game just "kind of fizzled."
"I don't think people are playing it and that's the problem," Cuellar said during the livestream event. "We've always had to support games that people actually play."
"Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite" has been a bit of a controversial title. While in-depth fighting game players and professionals admit that Capcom's newest title has some of the best combat and mechanics in the series, it has not been well received by the more casual audience. The lackluster graphics and poor character roster have made many people give up on the game. According to Capcom's latest financial report, "Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite" sold a million copies, which is a far cry from its projected outcome of 2 million sales.
Will Capcom be able to turn its cross-franchise fighter around in time for next year's tournament? It is hard to say, but it was able to improve "Street Fighter V" two years after its initial release, so perhaps there is still hope for this one, too.