Evo 2023 Has Over 9,000 People Ready To Fight, A New Record

The biggest fighting game tournament of the year, Evo, is almost here, and it’s going to be crowded when the action kicks off in its usual Las Vegas Mandalay Bay location. According to the official Evo Twitter account–and Dragon Ball Z’s Vegeta–over 9,000 people are participating in this year’s event, a huge increase from last year’s 7,000 participants.

Thanks to some napkin math by FireSquid Games’ Ben Barrett, we’ve got a rough idea of just how busy the Evo tournament is going to be. If the overall number of players is around the 10,000 entrant mark, then that means that the weekend will see hundreds of 16-person pools and only a precious number of hours in which to organize all the matches as the competition is whittled down for the prestigious grand finals.

As for the actual event, this Evo is shaping up to be an exciting one as Street Fighter 6 makes its debut on the grand stage. Capcom’s new fighting game will be just two months old when Evo takes place from August 4-6, so there’ll be some high-level competition here in what is expected to be the biggest draw of the tournament. The rest of the event lineup includes tournaments for The King of Fighters XV, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Mortal Kombat 11, Guilty Gear Strive, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, and Tekken 7.

This year’s prize pool has a guaranteed $25,000 per tournament, with the prize money split between the top six finalists in each tournament.