One of the biggest fighting game esports events is kicking of this weekend, the Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025. This event is taking place in Paris. With major tournaments coming for each of the big fighting game esports. We’ve got Street Fighter 6, Tekken, anime fighters like Granblue Fantasy, and more.
Each of them are getting tournaments you can follow along on stream. For a good number, this is a qualifying event or a wider circuit. Meaning we’ll see the top European players qualify for events like the Capcom Cup or Tekken World Tour. What can we expect at this event?
Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025
Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 is about to begin, running through September 12-14th. The tournament will have three days of action, where each game gets its own tournament. Some of them will even serve as qualifiers for the bigger circuits, so we’ll be seeing the best Street Fighter players and GGS players going head-to-head.
Across the weekend we’re going to see big events take place for each of the major fighters. The big hitters are all getting main events, but we’ll also see some side tournaments giving smaller games a chance to shine. These are the events to watch for at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025:
SF 6
One of the biggest tournaments is going to be Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 Street Fighter 6. The tournament is serving as a qualifier to the Capcom Cup 12. The winner here to move on to take their place in the Grand Final. The exact prize pool is yet to be announced, but with a shot at the biggest prize in Street Fighter 6 esports here, they’ll be plenty of competition.
Tekken 8
Along with SF 6 Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 is going to feature Tekken 8. This tournament is part of the Tekken World Tour as a Challenger event, alongside major events like the Esports World Cup. It’s played with open pools, followed by a double elimination bracket. The winner takes 300 points for the TWT.
Guilty Gear Strive
It’s not just the latest fighters showing up at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025. Guilty Gear Strive is also one of the biggest events. This one is part of the Arc World Tour as a Platinum tier event. The winner moves forward to that finale.
Other Main Events
Alongside those major tournaments, a good few other titles are getting main stage level events here too. These are the other bigger tournaments to watch for:
- Fatal Fury City of the Wolves (SWC Qualifier)
- Grandblue Fantasy Versus Rising (Arc World Tour Qulaifier)
- Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] (Arc World Tour Qualifier)
- HUNTERxHUNTER NENxIMPACT
- Dragon Ball FighterZ
Those are the bigger events. There’s a mix of some of the most popular like the Arc games featured, but the Hunter X Hunter game is a more surprising inclusion.
Each of these will have the same format as the games above. They have a pools round, followed by a double elimination bracket with the top-ranking players at the Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025.
Those are just the main events at the tournaments, there will also be a group of side tournaments too.
Side Tournaments at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025
Side tournaments at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025 will include some more outsider picks. These are games which might not carry the weight for a main event anymore, but it’s always fun to see them played. We’ve had older fighting games here, or more niche games. These are picks this time:
- Samurai Shodown
- Ultra Street Fighter IV
- King of Fighters XV
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Melty Blood Type Lumina
- Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2
As side events they probably won’t have the highest prize pools in esports, but it’s great to get extra outings for titles like these. Lately, these lists also include a bit of disappointment that Mortal Kombat 1 has dropped so far compared to the SF and Tekken titles that released at the same time. The others will ensure we’ll have an exciting mix at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025.
How to Watch the Tournaments
If you want to follow along and see which players are the standouts for Europe in fighting game esports this year, they’ll be some official streams. There’s the official Ultimate Fighting Arena Twitch channel which should be showing the brackets for all the major titles! Then there’s channels like Capcom fighters which broadcasts a specific game’s competition. Tune into one of these if you want to see which players are going forward to the circuit finals.
