Full Disclosure

Q: What is World Warriors?
A: World Warriors is a new fighting game community hub with a strong emphasis on history and tradition. It isn’t built to ignore the modern fighting scene – that’s a one-way ticket to irrelevance – but rather, look at the core of what the community has always been built upon and treat it as an ongoing masterpiece rather than a revolving door collection of ever-changing titles. As such, there will be a particular focus on games that have proven to stand the test of time, as well as games that build upon long-standing legacies without turning them on their head.

Q: Is it Street Fighter exclusive?
A: No, Street Fighter is simply the best place to start, as the origin point of the entire fighting game community. The best way to look at it would be to say that World Warriors is starting out where its main inspiration, Shoryuken.com, did nearly two decades ago, and aims to evolve differently over time. In that spirit, this may be the best time to announce the first non-SF title that will be featured prominently here at World Warriors: Vampire Savior.

Q: What games are going to be featured right away?
A: The list is as follows.

  • Street Fighter II` Hyper Fighting
  • Super Street Fighter II Turbo
  • Street Fighter Alpha 2
  • Street Fighter Alpha 3
  • Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
  • Ultra Street Fighter IV
  • Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition
  • Vampire Savior

Q: Moving beyond Capcom titles, what is World Warriors looking for in featured games?
A: The best case a fighting game can make for itself is to survive for upwards of a decade without any new revisions, and still have a dedicated and passionate fanbase supporting it (after all, writers will be needed in support of anything that gets added). An arcade tradition also goes a very long way, as does availability on modern platforms (for the sake of scope, “modern” also includes the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360).

Q: Any examples?
A: Without explicitly committing to the addition of any of these games, long hard looks will be given to Tekken Tag Tournament (team-based fighting games may be a sticking point with one of our staple site features, though), SoulCalibur II, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus-R, The King of Fighters ‘98 and 2002 (see TTT), and Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown. There’s also a community of dedicated Fatal Fury Special players in Japan that is not unlike the global Super Turbo crowd, and it would be very interesting if World Warriors could provide it with an inroad to broader exposure and is in many ways the kind of thing the site aims to do for these long-running communities out there.

Q: What kind of features can we expect to see at World Warriors?
A: In addition to the expected editorial and community aspects of the site which are already mostly in place, a video library feature is in the works to give players the best resources they’ve ever had to study up on characters, matchups, and even individual players. It is still very much a work in progress, and may have some growing pains even beyond the site launch, but in time it should be the signature feature of World Warriors and one of the main things to keep people coming back. In addition, an event history archive is planned, but hasn’t found its way to the actual drawing board as of yet, so it’s probably safer to file that one away in the “future plans” drawer.

Q: Is the entire staff in place at this point?
A: Not in the slightest. It would be great if we could launch with knowledgable specialty writers for all supported games listed above, as well as correspondents capable of providing in-person coverage of major events that feature those games. If you feel that describes you, reach out to [email protected] with your history as both a writer and a player, and we’ll figure out where to put you.

Q: When is the full site launching?
A: As of right now, World Warriors is slated to launch in two months, on April 5, 2018.