Seven out of nine fighting games to be played at Evo 2019 have over 1,000 entrants registered, the event’s president Joey Cuellar confirmed soon after registration ended on July 14.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate shattered the records of all past events with a whopping 3,492 entrants signed up in 2019, a number 35 percent higher than last year’s first-place game, Dragon Ball FighterZ. The latter has 1,191 entrants for the 2019 tournament, making it the title with the sixth-most participants.
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Another title that saw a significant drop in participation was Street Fighter V, which went down from about 2,400 entrants in 2018 to 1,929 in 2019. Tekken 7 is one of the few games that grew in attendance for the second straight year, going from 1,538 in 2018 to 1,885.
Evo 2019 won’t feature Super Smash Bros. Melee, which might contribute to the high number of entrants for Ultimate. Last year’s Melee tournament had 1,351 competitors.
Players can sign up to take part in more than a single tournament, which means adding up the entrants of all titles doesn’t necessarily reveal the final number of players attending the event.
Evo 2019 will take place from Aug. 2 to 4 in Las Vegas. The organizers have yet to reveal the event’s full schedule because that probably depends on how many pools are needed for each title.
Evo generally wraps up with the Street Fighter finals, but with this year’s attendance for Smash Bros. Ultimate, the organizers might decide to change the star game of the event.
