Author: Ian "iantothemax" Walker

Here’s some great news for pad players out there: the Evolution Championship Series staff has made the decision to legalize DualShock 4 usage at this year’s event. Though normally banned due to their Bluetooth capabilities, folks who rely on these devices to compete will now be able to utilize their controller of choice.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be regulations in place to ensure they don’t interfere with the competition. It will be every DualShock 4 users’ responsibility to make sure their controller is no longer paired with the console after their match. Anyone who doesn’t risks automatically disqualified from the tournament.

If you plan to compete in Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat X, or Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, and are unsure of how to desync controllers from the PlayStation 4, the video below should have all the answers you need.

Evo 2016 is scheduled for July 15-17 in Las Vegas, Nevada. More details can be found here.

Source: Mr. Wizard, video c/o CEO Gaming

With a brand new year of competition already in full swing, tournaments across the globe have begun announcing plans for their next installments. The same can be said of SoCal Regionals as of this morning thanks to an announcement by organizer Alex Valle.

Level|Up Series is apparently targeting October 14-16 as the SoCal Regionals 2016’s official dates. Due to the language, it’s entirely possible these may change in the future, but players now have something to start planning around until official details drop.

Venue issues forced SoCal Regionals to delay last year’s event from summer to fall, though a pair of Prelude events held competitors over until then.

Keep your eyes on Shoryuken for the latest information as it becomes available.

Source: Alex Valle

This year’s NorCal Regionals will experiment with a new way to handle emergency registration, organizer John Choi announced this morning. Folks who register for Street Fighter V, Ultra Street Fighter IV, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on-site will be placed into separate pools without seeding or player limit, forcing them to face other late registrants in order to make it out.

Their reasons are three-fold. First, this makes the process transparent, heeding complaints from their previous outing. It also keeps late registrations from throwing chaos into an established bracket, meaning pool assignments won’t change from their first publishing apart from fixing errors. And finally, the organizers hope to deter emergency registration in favor of the online process, which will help brackets run smoothly at the event itself.

“Note that online pools are typically 16 or 32 man brackets and NCR historically receives over 50 emergency registrations, including many top players,” Choi explained in his official statement. “So it is your choice if you want to wait to do emergency registration, pay more money, and gamble on this final bracket being smaller in number or lacking seeded players.”

Pools for the three aforementioned titles will all run on the same day to avoid players gaming the system and waiting for an easier bracket. Adjustments will be made should the tournament receive zero emergency registrations, but we all know how unlikely that is.

Of course, this also has its downsides, notably for community members who can’t reliably plan for a tournament months in advance. Coupled with the already steep costs of emergency registration, this move could likely prohibit some players from attending the tournament altogether.

Choi also addressed last year’s biggest fiasco, which forced them to replay a portion of the Ultra Street Fighter IV bracket after noting that the game wasn’t updated properly. NorCal Regionals will be training every staff member in how to confirm a title’s version and double-checking before finals. Street Fighter in particular is set to run entirely digital on PlayStation 4 to alleviate chances of the mistake happening again.

NorCal Regionals 2016 is scheduled for March 25-27 in Sacramento, California. More details can be found here.

Source: John Choi

Back when much of Street Fighter V’s cast was still a mystery, widely circulated rumors mentioned that a character named Zen would debut alongside Laura and Rashid. As new developments came along, many assumed that the newcomer became F.A.N.G, but a new piece of concept art from e-Capcom dispels that notion.

According to brief details, a character named Zen was indeed created Street Fighter V. Although we now know he hailed from India, it’s still unclear at what point in development he was cut.

【#日刊ストＶ】ちまたで一瞬話題となった「ゼン」というインド人を開発が面白がって描いたイラスト。登場しません。（開発秘話）#SFVhttps://t.co/t4VWDKSwKT pic.twitter.com/ROZhW4Nf3g

— イーカプコン (@e_capcom) February 3, 2016

Could Zen make an appearance in Street Fighter V sometime down the line? That remains to be seen, so for now, feel free to let us know what you think of his design in the comments.

Street Fighter V is set to launch on PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16. An additional round of downloadable characters will release periodically starting in March, with a second helping planned for sometime after that.

Source: e-Capcom via Laban

With other indie titles finding various degrees of success over the past few years, it would have been easy to let Pocket Rumble fly under the radar. Developed by Cardboard Robot Games, this neat little fighter is now available to the public by way of Steam’s early access program.

Pocket Rumble’s visuals pay homage to old-school Neo Geo Pocket fighters like King of Fighters R-1 and SNK Gals’ Fighters. The controls, on the other hand, fall somewhere in-between Divekick and a traditional fighting game.

Normals are limited to just light and heavy buttons, with special moves requiring only diagonal and single button inputs to perform. Every character has twelve health, and every attack deals one point of damage. Blocking works how you’d expect, but specials are capable of putting opponents into a unique state on block that makes the next blocked special deal damage.

As of now, Pocket Rumble is pretty bare on content due to its early access status. Two characters are playable, both of which offer up different styles to mess around with. Where Tenchi functions as the game’s shoto thanks to tools like fireballs and uppercuts, Naomi’s rushdown specials and run make her more akin to a King of Fighters character. The developers plan to add a new cast member every month.

In addition to training mode, Pocket Rumble also features online play courtesy of GGPO, so you’ll have no shortage of opponents as you wait for future updates. Going by the menu, it will eventually receive a story mode, tutorials, and more.

If you’re interested in giving Pocket Rumble a shot in its early stages, you can pick it up on Steam for $9.99. A more complete rundown of the controls and previews of upcoming characters are available on Kickstarter, and be sure to also check out our previous interview with the developers.

Source: Steam

Wizard World Gaming has announced a brand new partnership with Capcom that will see Street Fighter V join the convention as a permanent fixture in its competitive lineup. The upcoming title is set to appear at numerous events in 2016, with some nifty cash prizes available to those who can edge out their fellow players.

Over the next few months, Wizard World will be making stops in various locations across the United States, the full list of which can be found below.

• St. Louis, Missouri – April 1-3
• Minneapolis, Minnesota – May 6-8
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – June 2-5
• Sacramento, California – June 17-19
• Columbus, Ohio – July 29-31
• Orlando, Florida – August 5-7
• Chicago, Illinois – August 18-21
• Austin, Texas – September 23-25
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – November 4-6

This news comes hot on the heels of Wizard World Gaming Portland’s reveal of a $10,000 prize pool that will be split among tournaments for games like Street Fighter V, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Tekken 7, and more.

Further information on these events can be found through Wizard World’s official website.