Smash Ultimate Dominates Evo 2019 Registration; Under Night (UNIST) Going Strong

The annual fighting game tournament extravaganza known as the Evo Championship Series, a staple of the fighting game community (FGC), has unveiled how this year's roster of games is performing based on current registration numbers. Evo president Joey Cuellar tweeted the rankings for the nine games featured on the main stage this year, and it comes with a few surprises (see below).

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the fact that Under Night In-Birth: Exe Late[st] stands tall with the fifth-highest registration. Although the core game of Under Night has been in arcades since 2012 and consoles since 2015, this year is its debut at the Evo main stage. This is in part thanks to Exe: Late[st] being the definitive version of the game which hit the PC, PS4, and PS Vita in 2018 for North America. The smooth, stylish 2D anime fighter comes from the relatively small developer French Bread (makers of the cult-classic Melty Blood series) who worked with Arc System Works for a few aspects of the game. As of now, Under Night even tops ArcSys' Dragon Ball FighterZ, which had the highest registration at Evo 2018.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate topping the list doesn't come as much of a surprise, however, considering the wide appeal, its recent release, and the retiring of both Smash Bros For Wii U and Smash Bros Melee. Tekken 7 is having a strong showing in its second year at Evo, followed by the long-timer Street Fighter V and the upcoming Mortal Kombat 11. Despite not launching until June 2019, the reboot of the SNK classic Samurai Shodown currently sits in 7th.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle has been sitting at 9th, but the crossover fighter has a large update for spring this year. We got our hands-on four of the new characters on the way, which you can see in the video above. The game unites the casts of BlazBlue, Persona 4, Under Night, and the animation series RWBY in a 2D tag-team fighter, and we awarded it a 9/10 in our review commending its exciting and deep, yet accessible mechanics.

Registration for each game will remain open until July 14; Evo 2019 will take place in Las Vegas, NV at the Mandalay Bay between August 2 and 4.