Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage — Producer’s Letter #18
Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage · published
Hey everyone, Aoki here, producer of the Legacy VIRTUA FIGHTER Project.
For this month's letter, I wanted to share a few fun stories from behind the scenes of our stage development, but first I wanted to share a quick update. Our team is hard at work on the next update for all platforms. We're not quite ready to share the details yet, but I'll have more to talk about in next month's Producer Letter. Thanks for sticking with us a little longer!
Now for the stories. On Akira's stage, Statues, you'll find a hanging scroll with the kanji character "無" (Mu), which can be translated as "nothingness." The thing is, its inclusion goes back to when Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown was made available for free through PlayStation Plus. During development, a designer asked me, "What character should we put here?" My response was, "Why not use '無' as a nod to '無料' (muryo), meaning 'free'?" Everyone liked the idea, and it ended up making its way into the final stage.
There's another little hidden story on Taka-Arashi's stage, Sumo Ring. Around the ring, you'll see banners inspired by traditional sumo nobori, which usually display the names of wrestlers. When the team asked what names we should use, I jokingly suggested we create playful versions of our staff members' names as placeholders. The result turned out so good that we decided to keep them in the game! If you're curious, try comparing the banners to the staff credits and see if you can figure out who inspired each one. And no, before you ask, my name isn't on any of them (lol)
I'd also like to congratulate DFM | Itabashi Zangief, who fought through an incredibly tough bracket to win Battle Arena Melbourne 16, the fourth qualifying event of the Virtua Fighter Open Championship 2026 and earn a place at the Special Event.
Congratulations as well to NeonKay64 and Rayne, who secured their Special Event invitations at our fifth qualifying event, VSFighting XIV in Birmingham, UK.
Next up is CEO 2026 in Orlando, Florida for the next qualifier. We can't wait to see what the competitors bring to the stage and are looking forward to more incredible matches in the weeks ahead.
As always, thank you for your continued support of Virtua Fighter and SEGA.
July 28, 2026
Seiji Aoki
Producer, Legacy Virtua Fighter Project