EVO Japan 2026 Day 3: Other EVO Arcade Happenings

EVO Japan 2026 is now completely over and done with, and as is tradition by this point, day 3 means it is time to run down everything else in arcade gaming that appeared at the event, outside of exA-Arcadia’s offerings. They are always the only ones to unveil new arcade games there, and sadly a few couldn’t be revealed on this occasion due to licensing approvals not coming in on time. On the bright side, there is always things happening besides them in the competitive side of the show – which is what today’s post is here for.

In case you missed day 1 and 2, find them here and here; now onto the remaining pieces of arcade interest:

Bandai Namco

One of the major supporters of EVO is Bandai Namco, whose home-focused Tekken series continues to receive plenty of tournament focus at the show (despite recent fan displeasure with the games). That aside, they’ve been using EVO Japan to promote their popular Mobile Suit Gundam EXVS series, going as far as setting up a dedicated demo booth to experience its latest edition, Infinite Boost. It’s worth saying that this is still a strictly Japan-focused affair though; they did install cabinets at the Bandai Namco Cross Store in Brooklyn, but apparently those were removed not too long ago.

Interestingly enough, EVO and Bandai Namco did also make an English language video to show off all the action from the exhibition, though all that has done is make Western fans of the series unhappy again. The fact that the EXVS cabinets got removed from the NYC Cross Store seems to suggest they did not use and thus lost them, however given the amount of complaints that always seem to arise from players about its availability (or lack thereof) over here, perhaps there really should be a way for it to reach more people:

Taito

Something we’ve been starting to see creep in at EVO Japan recently has been the additional presence of arcade rhythm games; last year there was a Taiko no Tatsujin side tournament (more on this year’s soon), and this time, Taito have been promoting their dedicated “Tradz” esports team for the genre by bringing along one of the new Pop’n Music cabinets along from Konami (as well as a Getter Spin prize game). These have been seeing some interest out West too, thanks to Konami finally opening orders for it up to other North American arcades than Round1USA and those that got first dibs on Bemani titles last year.

As can be seen from the monitor in the booth photo, Taito additionally did a couple of livestreams for Pop’n:

Sanwa Denshi

Out of the companies that don’t make the fighting games themselves but always have a presence, Sanwa Denshi are among the biggest for their many high-grade stick and button wares. Alongside being shown off here, these of course end up in many a cabinet and personal fightstick, though the opinion war rages on with the latter of those thanks to the newer leverless hitboxes, which were even being offered as prizes for some tournaments. Whatever way you play though, you can’t do much better than SD for the parts.

Blaze Pro

Something that is new and arcade-adjacent but not intended for actual venues was revealed at EVO Japan too, that being another retro-flavored Neo Geo piece of hardware. Whilst Plaion are making their new AES+, Blaze Pro are producing a new tabletop MVS cabinet, which was shown off at the event in all its glory. It seems that this wasn’t actually playable yet, with a sign on it specifically pointing out that the cabinet design is still going through final licensor approval, however it’s easy to guess that this will be running off emulation and not a true MVS setup. Would be nice if that wasn’t the case though…

Side Tournaments

One thing that EVO Japan is famous for now is the amount of side tournaments on random, sometimes extremely niche titles, with a number of them not even being fighting games. The prime example of that this year in terms of arcade games has to be the appearance of StepManiaX, hot on the heels of it receiving a location test elsewhere in Japan (which Kyle Ward went to visit this week). SMX’s rolling content updates even meant they had their 77th to coincide with this, featuring a song by former Bemani maestro NAOKI. Step Revolution also has something else coming soon, but when that reveal will happen is unknown.

If you’re interested in seeing how players got on with SMX in EVO, there was a livestream for this too. Here’s hoping this spark from the test and EVO side event lights a flame for the game out in Japan:

Back to the fighters, and one of the arcade fighting game releases of recent times that didn’t come out on exA also had a side tournament – namely EN-Eins Perfektewelt: Anastasis, which came out for Taito’s NESiCAxLive platform just over three years ago through the unusual means of being crowdfunded by fans (something that rarely happens in the arcade industry). That does unfortunately also mean it is completely locked to Japan in an official capacity, but it’s good that the game continues to get love over there.

Finally, for a tournament that was most definitely not one on the side, Capcom’s nearly 30-year-old Vampire Savior impressively got a main stage competition, despite them not doing anything major with the Darkstalkers series in years now. It was also featured in the EVO Museum. Could this be a sign to them that there’s still plenty of love out there for it? One would hope so, but its competitive efforts were still dwarfed by Street Fighter 6’s, which even earned a Guinness World Record for the most participants in a single fighting game (7,168, for those wondering).

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That marks the end of everything we could find in arcades at EVO Japan 2026, but stay tuned to the blog and Arcade Heroes social media channels this month, as in one week’s time there will be another instance of three-day-spanning show coverage in the form of this year’s AAA Expo out in China. This will generally offer up announcements and reveals very different to EVO, with much fewer (if any) fighters, but there should be lots to talk about and look forward to in terms of the big deluxe machines and curiosities from Asia. Until then, what interested you most from this third and final day of EVO Japan?

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