Update: What are the best and most impactful fighting games to release this decade?

You can't vote Marvel vs. Capcom 3 ten times in a row, sorry

Posted by Dakota 'DarkHorse' Hills • December 6, 2019 at 5:30 a.m. PST • Comments: 116

Update: You can check out the final results of our poll below to see which games our readers believe to be the best / most impactful games of the 2010's.

December is upon us which means that there's only one month left in this entire decade that's been the biggest and most important eras in fighting game history. Today, the genre feels larger than ever before following the mostly quiet times of the 2000's before Street Fighter 4's release.

There's been so many fighting games that have come out in the last 10 years that many fans probably either forgot about or thought came out more than 10 years ago, so we've put together a giant poll to ask everyone what they think were the absolute best of the best and most impactful — from (Super) Street Fighter 4 all the way to Mortal Kombat 11 and Samurai Shodown.

Going all the way back to 2010, fighting games started to really pick up steam again following the previous year's release of Street Fighter 4 on consoles reinvigorating pretty much the scene as a whole.

That year gave us games like King of Fighters 13, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Tatsunoko VS Capcom: Ultimate All Stars and Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, so you know it was about to be a good decade.

Our list includes 40 titles and series with the rules to appear as follows:

Entries like BlazBlue we've shortened down to a single option due to the manner of their releases, updates and expansions this generation which is also why Street Fighter 4 is listed by itself despite also having Super, Arcade Edition and Ultra coming out during the time period — and doesn't include side games like 3D Edition.

Looking purely at sales data will suggest that NetherRealm Studios' fighting games in Mortal Kombat and Injustice have been the driving force in the United States this generation, but we currently have probably at least half a dozen multi-million seller titles in the wild now with pro-level circuits leading to the largest tournament numbers we've ever seen in the community.

The next decade looks to be shaping up quite nicely already as well considering we have new games like Guilty Gear Strive and Granblue Fantasy Versus scheduled to release and start the next generation alongside big expansions like Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition.

What best or most impactful means is a purely subjective topic, so think from the heart and mind when making your decisions. Many of these titles changed the landscape of fighting games as we know it... though others quickly fell to the wayside.

You can choose up to 10 of your favorites from the top titles of the 2010's below, and if we missed any big names, let us know in the comments and we can probably add them in as well.