Is that Virtua Fighter Ganondorf
Sega promised new Virtua Fighter details this weekend, and with the company revealing a glimpse of Virtua Fighter 6, aka “New Virtua Fighter Project,” back in December, fans expected a smorgasbord of news regarding the forthcoming title. But what the community received was far less expected: Temu Ganondorf.
Sunday’s VF Direct 2025 Spring presentation showed off a modernized design for Virtua Fighter veteran Wolf Hawkfield in the form of a brief clip and flashy introduction. Playing into the character’s wrestling DNA, the teaser shows Wolf emerging from a smoke-filled runway with pyrotechnics that would make Vince McMahon rethink his life choices.
An announcer is heard in the trailer narrating what Wolf has been up to since fans last saw him in Virtua Fighter 5, revealing that the wrestler had retired from the ring and returned as a heel. And what emerges from the smoke is an older, hardened Wolf Hawkfield, who looks almost exactly like Ganondorf if Nintendo had commissioned him to be reimagined in the Yakuza universe.
New Virtua Fighter Project producer Riichiro Yamada spoke a bit about Wolf and the rest of the cast’s new appearances in the upcoming title. Yamada explained in the teaser that not much had been previously known about Wolf’s “motivations for fighting.” Sega looked to remedy this perceived issue with the new game. Yamada announced that VF6 is “still in development” and that all of the franchise’s legacy characters will be getting rich origin stories.
But why does Wolf look like Ganondorf? The answer may lie in VF6’s newly fleshed-out lore — you’ll just have to wait a bit longer for that answer. (Or it simply could be a coincidence.)
In other VF news, Sega is indeed porting Virtua Fighter 5 once again! The VF Direct 2025 Spring showcase revealed that the latest update to VF5 will make its way to Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X at an undisclosed date. Additionally, the game will receive rollback netcode and “feature full cross-play,” according to a news release from Sega. Interestingly, there appears to be even more news coming for the new Virtua Fighter 5 REVO port as the press release details that “multiple additional content updates are currently in the works, with details to be announced at a later date.”
It’s currently unclear when fans can expect to play Virtua Fighter 6, purchase Virtua Fighter 5 REVO for Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X, or use off-brand Ganondorf in the new game. But it’s cool that Nintendo is branching out like this. What’s next? Link being playable in a Bandai Namco fighting game?
