Virtual Fighter X | The story behind VF4's early development known as VF-X

One of Sega's biggest franchises Virtual Fighter is to return some point this year in 2022 under the name Virtual Fighter X Esports. Upon it's announcement I was initially excited, then I felt confused - that name sounds awfully familiar? Well back in the year 2000, Sega's next entry in the franchise was called just that - minus the 'Esport'.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to look back at the inception of the real Virtual Fighter X back before it was known as the 4th entry in the franchise, and what Sega's plans were before it was renamed became a staple in the mainline series as we know it.

Official Logo on Sega AM2 site

Rumours had been circulating about Virtual Fighter 4 well before it's announcement with people wondering what its fate was going to be in the arcades as well as on consoles.

Trying to find exactly when the game was announced is pretty tricky, especially during the early 2000's where gaming news felt more sporadic. According to reports, it looks to have been announced some time around 16th September 2000 and exclusively to the Naomi 2 arcade board. This left people wondering if the game would make a debut on the Dreamcast. Sacrifices would have to be made to the game to get it running on the much weaker Dreamcast, but it shares enough technical similarities that with enough compromises, a port of VFX would be in the realm of possibility.

The game also had it's own section on the AM2 website, but nothing more than what I can only assume is a 'coming soon' landing page with little information about the game. No other information would come about the title from Sega or the developers as 2000 slowly comes to an end.

At this point in January 2001, the writing was on the wall for Dreamcast. The announcement about exiting the hardware business was just a few weeks away and the PS2 hype machine was still in full swing. Even so, there were some small rumours circulating at the time that the release would come to Xbox as an exclusive title. However despite the news that would completely reshape the company in the coming months, Sega announced more details about VFX.

On the 9th January, Sega announced that Virtual Fighter X was just in fact its tentative title and will be further announced at the AOU2001 Amusement Expo between the 23rd and 24th of February. In regards to home ports, no further information would be disclosed other than the release would be for Naomi 2 arcade board.

Sega's first official promo screens of VF4

Sega would change forever as we know it on the 31st of January, with news of Sega leaving the hardware business behind. We all know the story, and people were concerned about the future of Sega titles and what the future held for their development.

At this time we got a lot more information regarding VFX. Despite what a lot of current Sega fan sites claim, it was this same day Sega officially changed the name from VF-X to VF4. There weren't any reports or announcement to mark the name change, just a quiet change of logo on the Sega AM2 website from the VF-X mock-up logo to the VF4 logo we know today.

Further information came out about VF4 and where the game would be ported to. To everyone's amazement, this was what Sega would claim to be "The first Sega games to be available on other game consoles this year". Dreamcast fans had more bad news to come, when Sega was quizzed on whether VF4 would come to Dreamcast, the reply was "[..] porting to Dreamcast is currently undecided. ”

And here is where the Sega VF-X story ends. More screenshots would come of character profiles a couple of weeks before the Amusement Expo, and the game was officially revealed to the public as Virtual Fighter 4. The game saw some kind of promotional release on Dreamcast through the VF4 History and Passport disc included in the Japanese release of Shenmue 2 at least.

Hope you enjoyed this fun little look back at a brief history in time where a VF-X could have existed... way back in 2001...

References:

https://www.gamekult.com/actualite/virtua-fighter-x-en-developpement-262.html

https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/01/31/virtua-fighter-4-ps2-exclusive

https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/02/02/now-playing-in-japan-358

http://web.archive.org/web/20001013134640/http://www.sega-rd2.com:80/

http://web.archive.org/web/20010202081800/http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20010109/sega.htm

http://www.sega-rd2.com/vf4/index.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20040110161614/http://xbox.gamerweb.com/news/0101/068.asp

http://web.archive.org/web/20040618145923/http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/digest/200101

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20010131/sega2.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20060512010759/http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20010131/sega2.htm