Best fighting games on PC 2024

Fighting game fans have been worried that the Marvel vs Capcom games could be lost to time due to licensing issues between the two companies. Fortunately, these concerns have been squashed with the release of the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, a package featuring seven arcade classics, including the first game this legendary partnership spawned, The Punisher.

The other six games include Marvel’s first fighting game, X-Men: Children of the Atom. This sparked a series of hits each year, culminating in Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. The games in this collection feature accessible controls, adjustable difficulty, and training modes to hone your skills. The best part is that these games can be played online, and they have rollback netcode to ensure you have the best network experience possible.

When Capcom revealed Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui were coming to Street Fighter 6 as the game’s first guest characters, fans began to dream for the first time in decades. Could Capcom join forces with SNK once again to release a new game? Well, that remains to be seen, but what we do have to celebrate is the re-release of SNK vs Capcom SVC Chaos, a classic fighting game that, until recently, had been relegated to old consoles.

Based on King of Fighters 2002, SVC Chaos brings together 36 characters from SNK and Capcom’s best known series to face off in 1v1 combat. In this re-release, the biggest addition is the rollback netcode and support for online lobbies, making it easy to play with up to nine players. There’s also a hitbox viewer in training mode to see the range of each of your attacks, perfect for hardcore players. This is a great way to experience a special moment in fighting game history, and with any luck, it might mean we see the re-release of the legendary Capcom vs SNK 2.

Bandai Namco has taken the Tekken formula to another level with the latest entry in the series. Tekken 8 has been designed for studious players looking to strengthen their skills with a revamped training mode featuring various useful tools. Our favorite feature has to be the replay analyzer, a tool that breaks down your fights and highlights areas where you could’ve performed a stronger combo or avoided an attack by sidestepping out of the way.

While plenty of companies are cashing in on the retro trend, none quite go to the extremes that Capcom Fighting Collection does. It’s a near-complete archive of the best games that Capcom made for arcades in the 1990s. Unlike the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, the best news is that every game included in the package is playable online, giving you an easy way to fight against other players worldwide.

For one lump sum, you get Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition, all five games, and revisions from the Darkstalkers series, Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness, and the first official home port of Red Earth, a fantasy fighting game with RPG progression mechanics. Puzzle game fans also get Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo to satisfy their falling-block puzzle itch and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix if they’d rather see these chibi-style fighters duking it out. That’s ten classic arcade games, and they’re all must-haves for any retro fighting game fan.

King of Fighters XV introduces the Shatter Strike defensive option that counters any attack at the cost of a power gauge. In addition, returning mechanics from previous games have been tweaked to make them more usable for newer players. For example, Max Mode now has two versions: one for increasing your fighter’s attack and guard crush strength and one that immediately cancels any attack you land into a new combo that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

Its online offerings are impressive, with multiple options for playing against others, including an online training mode where you can connect with other players to learn from them. Fights against other players online feel as close to being in the arcade as possible, thanks to improvements to the netcode, particularly with the PC version. Likewise, battles against other online players feel as close to being in an arcade as possible. There’s a fair bit of legacy skill involved, so KoF veterans will likely stomp all over newcomers, but that’s something you can always work on with practice.

Arc Systemworks may be well known for anime-style fighters such as DNF Duel, Granblue Fantasy Versus, and DragonBall FighterZ, but the flagship game has always been Guilty Gear. The Xrd generation introduced us to gorgeous 3D models on a 2D plane. Guilty Gear Strive’s structure is more refined with its combat, presentation, and fully voiced stage music for every character – some of them are genuinely decent songs in their own right, but all work nicely as stage music.

What makes Guilty Gear Strive stand out is its online mode. Confusing and convoluted lobbies aside, it’s one of the most stable fighting games today thanks to its bespoke rollback netcode, helping online tournaments thrive throughout the pandemic and into the foreseeable future. As a result, we managed to maintain a stable connection while battling players across the pond.

Many fighting games rely on flashy combos with massive hit counters to generate excitement, but Samurai Shodown is almost the opposite. This is because the cult classic fighting game from the arcades is a weapon-based fighter where every hit taken has the potential to lop off vast chunks of your health. It’s great if you’re looking for a fighting game with more emphasis on ‘footsies’  than flashy moves. It’s more old-school in its feature set than most fighting games.

But if we’re honest, the main takeaway is that we think the incredibly tense fights are worth investing time into. You could be one hit from losing, only to make a spectacular comeback with just a handful of well-timed strikes.

Injustice 2 is a grim take on the DC universe that rebalances the sides of good and evil – which is just a fancy way of saying Superman and Batman will fight each other. The broad roster includes superpowered favorites and some delightfully obscure picks, offering authentic powers in richly strategic matches filled with combat options and spectacular destruction.

NetherRealm games shine in their content offerings, and Injustice 2 is no exception. There’s a best-in-class cinematic story mode, a Multiverse full of gameplay challenges and unlockables, and a whole gear system full of ways to customize your fighter’s stats and appearance. Even if Mortal Kombat 11 has supplanted Injustice 2, this is still one of the most complete fighting game packages you can get, mainly if you prefer Batman to Iron Man.

Street Fighter V didn’t have a perfect launch. The fundamentals were there from the start with its core fighting system, but a dearth of content and characters meant it felt like an incomplete game. But while it took too long to get there, 2018’s Arcade Edition release saw the game finally achieve its full potential, and the Championship Edition solidified the game’s legacy in the future.

Underneath the hood, though, this is still Street Fighter, the standard all other fighting games are measured against. So, if you want to understand fireballs, combos, and specials – never mind footsies and frame data – start with Street Fighter. This series continues the traditions we’ve been building since the World Warrior hit arcades all those years ago. Street Fighter V also features cross-play with PlayStation 4 and 5, which means you can compete against everyone else playing online.

With Tekken 7, we’re coming to the end of the saga that began when the Mishima Zaibatsu’s leader, Heihachi, threw his son, Kazuya, off a cliff. Cinematic flourishes of its long, sometimes ridiculous, Tekken 7’s story mode seeps into the actual fights. Slow-motion close-ups punctuate each battle’s tensest moments, and the series’ stony-faced cast of fighters are just as grimly determined to throw each other into volcanoes as ever.

But it’s not just the bombastic story mode that makes Tekken 7 great. It remains the most competitive 3D fighter, with robust tactical battles that reward strong technical play with impressive combos and insane damage. That beautiful combination of high-drama visuals and deep, complex mechanics makes Tekken 7 one of the most exhilarating fighting games on the planet.

The fighting game community tends to move on when a new entry in an established series is released, no matter how rough the transition might be. However, that didn’t happen with Marvel vs Capcom. In part, that’s because the latest title, Infinite, was pretty poorly received – but it’s got more to do with the fact that Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is so damn good.

It boasts a robust roster from two of the most beloved companies and their franchises. Then there’s the art that treats all those fan favorites just right. And, most of all, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 has a wondrously complex tag-team fighting system as deep and varied as any game in the fighting game community canon. Its 3v3 battles are rich with tags and assist moves. Its cacophony of combos and specials is a rich ballet that rewards mastery in a way few other games can match.