This is the month of remasters and console games hitting PC, starting with the delightfully charming Maquette, carrying through to Crash Bandicoot 4 no longer being a timed exclusive, and ending Disco Elysium’s final cut of content. Between all that, we’ve got Tony Hawk landing a 4K kickflip, Tales from the Borderlands on Nintendo Switch, and even Google’s Stadia managed to lock a third-party game down. Not bad!

The Wrestlemania of fighting games kicks off on July 31, as EVO 2020 has just announced which eight games will make the cut and see players battle it out for a massive pot of cash.

Fisticuffs! Glorious competition, settled on a stage between two individuals who are ready to put everything on the line to see who’s the best. In many ways, fighting games are the essence of competition boiled to its purest form and unleashed with all manner of face-melting techniques that favour the skilled. 2019 may not have been bursting at the seams with fighting games, but what entries there were in this cult favourite genre were some of the best excuses ever to throw down a gauntlet and pick a fight online.

Over in the world of Samurai Shodown, things are a little bit different. Sure the game has a broad selection of characters who all pack a universal wallop in their weapons, but at the highest level possible there’s a small number of favourite characters who stand out. And that’s just the way that Samurai Shodown director Nobuyuki Kuroki likes it.

Las Vegas may have been home to thousands of fighting game hopefuls over the weekend, but only a handful of challengers would leave EVO 2019 as champions. Whether it was through the use of godlike reflexes, cunning zoning skill or a reversal that snatched victory from the jws of defeat, this year’s EVO came down to pure skill when the dust had finally settled from some truly tense competition.

Feeling cocky and with a huge health bar lead over his opponent at a recent Samurai Shodown tournament,one player decided that it was time to show off as he threw his weapon aside and went in for the kill. And let me tell you something brother, the next ten seconds were beautiful.

As is the custom, EVO caters to a selection of game that each have their own prize pool of cold hard cash up for grabs, resulting in some games being more popular than the other. That’s not a definite rule though, as other games emerge as fan favourites thanks to their inherent charm and an ability to bring something different to the table when players enter the event.

Dynamic and dangerous, there’s no other fighting game like Samurai Shodown on the market. After a decade away, this latest chapter proves that idea once again with the sharpest swordsmanship combat around that manages to unleash a barrage of modern cuts while still retaining the magic of the original game.