Kluge Interactive, the studio behind hit VR rhythm game Synth Riders (2019), announced its upcoming VR fighting game, FINAL FURY, will be featured at Steam Next Fest on October 14th, which of course means a playable demo.

Final Fury is a fast-paced combat game that puts you in the arena for some arcade-style fighting—not unlike Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat—but with some very physical VR gameplay.

Now, the studio says the Final Fury demo will be downloadable from October 14th – 28th, featuring two opponents, Tempest and Glitch.

This comes after a major setback following user testing late last year, which prompted the studio to “rethink everything.”

“It’s not often you hear these words and it’s followed by good news. Yet, that’s exactly what happened after our FINAL FURY public playtest late last year,” Kluge Interactive says in a Steam news update. “We had stages built out, animations made, and systems in place. We even got positive feedback from players! Still, it hit us like a long range haymaker from Glitch—we needed to rethink the combat controls.”

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From December 2023 to September 2024, the team says it refocused on the gesture mechanics, with the new demo showing off what Kluge believes can be “the future of fighting games.”

There’s no word on when to expect the full release, which is slated to arrive on Quest and SteamVR headsets, but also “as many platforms as possible,” Kluge says. We can however expect more playable fighters, arenas, and online PvP multiplayer when it does arrive; so far, the studio has revealed four other characters beyond Tempest and Glitch, so it seems there’s a good slate of content yet to come.

Additionally, following the Steam Next Fest demo release, the studio says they intend all future playtests “to be open to all, so no sign up necessary.”

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    Steam next fest? You gotta be desperate to promote that.

  • Love the trailer!

  • Michael Speth

    It doesn't look like a fighting game but instead a FPS. I wonder if they have ever played street fighter? Imagine thinking a fighting game consists of exclusively ranged attacks.

    • VR5

      FPS are more like beat 'em ups (one vs. many), this is one on one, the definition of a fighting game.

      Also, SF has both close and ranged attacks, actually keeping opponents away with fire balls and hitting them with a dragon punch when they jump over the fireballs is the most used pattern.

      This is different in its own way, designed to work well in VR. The core concept, one on one, punching to attack close and ranged, is still that of a fighting game.

      • Michael Speth

        Are there fighting games that are 2v2? Marvel v Capcom?

        Did you see any melee combat in this game?

        Nintendo Arms is sort of a long range fighter but it also was dropped pretty early by Nintendo bc it was strange. Noting that Arms in general only has 2 arms that are attached so technically it is still melee.

        • VR5

          Yes, I did see melee combat. Watch the trailer again.

          Marvel vs. Capcom are tag fighters, so it’s one on one.

          There are battle royale fighters like Smash Bros. or Power Stone 2 and they’re borderline but it’s still one vs. few (so close to one on one) compared to one vs. many in a battle royale shooter.

          Also, the most important difference is FPS use guns, pulling a trigger to make a tool unleash violence. In a fighter fists or weapons are moved with force, even to unleash a projectile.

          That a VR game would most of the time be first person, in fact have a first person nuance to it even in 3rd person games, doesn’t make a physical game like a fighter into an FPS.

  • Runesr2

    Does not look like proper PCVR to me, poly levels are extremely low, bad lighting, bad dynamic shadows, textures look low-res – so SteamVR is getting another Quest port made to work on gpus with 1% of the tflops of the RTX 4090?