Rick Thiher discusses EVO 2024's new additions, SF3 Third Strike, Marvel vs. Collection, MVCI Beyond, and more (Exclusive)

Ahead of EVO 2024, we had a chance to talk to Rick Thiher, General Manager of EVO and creator of the Combo Breaker tournament. Perhaps better known to many as TheHadou, he’s a mainstay in the fighting game community. We’ve spoken before about EVO, as it is one of the greatest fighting game events of all time. It brings together beginners, pros, and content creators in a way that few events can. It’s not just about the matches, though. It’s about something that brings us all together.

I sat down with Rick Thiher of EVO this week to chat about if there was any stress living up to EVO 2023’s massive success, things to be excited about at the event, and something I’m personally quite curious about - the notion of having a fan-made mod appear at the event. Maximilians’ Marvel vs. Capcom Infinity Beyond mod has real potential, and if people are loud enough, maybe we’ll see it at EVO 2025.

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Rick Thiher discusses fighting games, EVO 2024, and more

Q. First, thanks for once again taking the time to chat with us! EVO’s already looking incredibly promising this year, with some massive numbers on many of the main stage games - in particular Street Fighter 6. Were you surprised at any of the turnouts?

Rick Thiher: I think it's always surprising when you get a mass turnout, because you're always hoping for it, and even if you're confident it's going to show up, it has to be a surprise, or it loses the cool factor. So, still very much surprised any time there's a great turnout. With that said, I think the surprise for Street Fighter specifically is it hit that 5,000-plus entry number twice this year.

Produced it over in EVO Japan, and then just a few short months later has produced it again at EVO in Las Vegas. That's a consistency that I don't think we've actually seen before for any game ever, and a really great sign of how enthusiastic Street Fighter's fan base is about Street Fighter 6, and quite frankly, how good a game that that team is developing right now.

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Q. EVO feels just as big this year as yesterday, and as we all know, EVO 2023 completely shattered records and expectations. Was there any stress or anxiety that came with trying to meet last year’s lofty heights?

Rick Thiher: There's always a stress that comes with that lofty expectation as you're coming off of a gigantic record-setting show, and there's always an expectation that that should be replicable. With that said, I don't think that the quality of the show is dictated exclusively by whether or not it shatters any of the records of the show. That's a bonus.

It's like a good cake. The cake is good on its own. Get some good frosting, get some good toppings on there and it's going to be better, but it's not required for the cake to be good.

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Q. I think perhaps the most interesting title for me was definitely seeing the numbers for SF3: Third Strike. Its 2024 signups are higher than many current games from 2023. What keeps Third Strike so hot, and do you think there’s a hope for perhaps a major Third Strike resurgence?

Rick Thiher: I think there's always hope for a resurgence, particularly when a game is good to begin with. I think Third Strike particularly when you have things like the Jazzy Circuit in North America, where you have a community-led focus on competition and on an actual community in the literal sense of the word, not the abstract sense of the word, that's going to help propel large format activations like this.

When you have the game still seeing really, really beloved international competition, something like Cooperation Cup with Mitsuda-san and co. over in Japan, that plays into there being a community in the literal sense of the word again.

Take those together, and make a special moment around that, which is what EVO's Throwback Tournament Series is currently allowing to happen for some of these retro titles. And I think you will always be able to generate a very enthusiastic response because the fans haven't really gone anywhere. If you liked Third Strike 20 years ago, by and large, you still like Third Strike today.

You just don't always have something of note or impact that brings the version of you 20 years later out to compete. And so Third Strike, I think, is special because you have those legacy competitors out to compete, and then you have new competitors that have come through things like Jazzy Circuit, and they're meeting up around what is, I think, arguably the most accessible time period for that title in history because there are so many different ways to play it right now. And there are all kinds of arguments about what is the right way, or the best way, or the proper way.

But when you're just trying to get people to engage with the game, anyway is a good starting point, and there's lots of “any” available right now.

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Q. EVO is more than just a fighting game tournament though - it’s a home to FGC culture just in general. There’s so much cool stuff happening on the Show Floor - what parts of it were most exciting for you to get set up?

Rick Thiher: So I think there's, within the activities, there's three this year that I'm kind of leaning into and being enthusiastic about. EVO, for the first time, has an art gallery. We've worked with the publishers and put together over a hundred pieces from the history of fighting games that will be on display in a museum-esque presentation, and I've never gotten to experience that before.

And traveling around the world, I've encountered a few situations where there was a small amount of fighting game art collected either for a short galleria or a shop in Tokyo, and it's really cool to be able to see that history all at once and not just have it archived on Google, to have it physically be something that's in front of you. So I'm very excited about that because, A, it's new and it's personally interesting.

The arcade this year has grown by absurd proportions, and since last year was already a very sizable arcade, that's incredibly satisfying because one of the primary pieces of feedback I got from particularly first-time attendees is they've never got to experience an arcade like that. That culture has largely moved on in the States.

We do not have a lot of access to that type of environment. It's part of why when I see people go to EVO Japan for the first time and they get to experience the arcade culture that's still present in Tokyo, it's this unique attraction. So having that be present at EVO, still cool.

Having a bigger version of that be present at EVO, stellar. So those two are particularly something that I'm keen on. And then the third one is honestly just the community showcase tournaments and the Friday showcase for kind of the panels and the exhibitions and dev talks, and we've got Seth Killian doing an interview again this year, which is always appreciated by me as Seth is one of the voices of fighting games from when I came into the culture as a whole.

So I'm very excited for those aspects, and that's not even including the Vendor Village and the exhibitors and the publishers and the hands-on with the new games. And well, for the first time, the fact that you can spend literally all of Sunday at EVO just playing casuals, which has been actually probably the most requested thing at EVO period for the last decade, is just having an entire day where everyone can play games together that has traveled in. So I think it's going to be a good show this time.

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Q. Another cool new feature of EVO 2024, is the dioramas where cosplayers/fans will be able to have photo opps. I assume this will probably be classic stages or designs from some of the most-known fighting games - any of these you want to talk about, or are we keeping it a secret for now?

Rick Thiher: It's always good to have a surprise, but it's always good to hint into what's there. We've been able to work with the publishers and get access to some of those fighting game backgrounds that you're talking about, that we are able to now print at large format sizing so that anybody can show up, whether they're in cosplay or not, and catch a photo in front of something very familiar.

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Q. We’ve received some pretty great announcements so far when it comes to fighting games. One thing that stood out for a lot of people is the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection - I know I am. While many are worried that the ROM used for the games won’t be the version they prefer, how do you feel about the potential resurgence of MVC2, and many other classics?

Rick Thiher: I think you can never, never stop speaking extremely highly about accessible fighting games. And to have Marvel vs. Capcom, and quite frankly have the legacy of Marvel vs. Capcom available, have it easily accessible, have it on modern consoles where someone's going to get that Christmas system this year, open it up, plug it in, and be able to immediately get Marvel vs. Capcom.

And it has been so many years now where going from I'm interested in that game to I'm going to play that game has taken effort, that alone is incredible. And it's going to do great things for not just archiving that franchise and the fandom around that franchise, but it's going to create an opportunity to create new players who are by and large devoted to that franchise, or even specific games in that franchise. And so being able to have that readily accessible is huge.

And if you take away all of those nice ecosystem thoughts, if nothing else, it puts “Children of the Atom” just a couple of button clicks away from me and some cousins at a family gathering. And it is always nice to introduce people to actually broken gameplay.

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Q. Sort of in that vein, we also received awesome SF6 news - depending on how you feel about M. Bison, I suppose. Out of the Season 2 characters, which are you most excited for?

Rick Thiher: So it's hard for me not to be most excited about Bison. I'm one of the guys that's going to fall on the Bison is “always cool” to me side of the line, in part because Bison always has a moveset that's familiar, but he plays differently in each iteration of Street Fighter in, I think, pretty significant ways. Bison in four is not Bison in five. He's definitely not Bison in six.

He's absolutely not Bison from Alpha. And just, I think Dictator always offers a really good look at how a battle team is approaching the game they're currently working on. And it's cool to see that for season two of Street Fighter 6, because you see all those ideas available in his gameplay.

And then you get to go, all right, so what does that mean for Elena? And you have access to her kit in this engine for the first time. And what does that mean for Terry and Mai beyond an entire internet worth of, does this mean CVS3? That part, honestly, for Bison is almost as exciting for me as Bison himself. Because, yeah, I can sit back and be like, “I wanted Sagat!”

But it's so, so cool to know that off of just Bison's release, that there's more coming that conceptually is learning from Bison's release. Because Bison released cool and releasing cool characters, releasing cool characters is a skill that not everybody who's even regularly doing it lands.

And I think Street Fighter 6 has landed it repeatedly now. That team made Ed cool. And the amount of people that didn't think that that was possible, I think is such a nice reinforcement for how much faith we can put into the Street Fighter 6 dev team right now.

Because man, if you can do that with Ed, and we get like four or five seasons down the line, and we can get into some of the weird characters. Let's see what that team would do with Necro.

Jason Parker: I just want Dan back, Dan’s my boy. He’s so good. He’s never quite great, but he’s always really… like in 4, he was so fun to play. Taunt into Super, and that was just it.

Rick Thiher: Look, there's a strong argument that fighting games should only have great characters, because the root of fighting games is just competing, and a great character is going to be the most competitively viable.

But the reality is, fun characters are the absolute best things in fighting games, because they inspire you to play. And maintaining that balance, I think, is part of Street Fighter 6 has done. I think it's a really strong part of what Tekken 8 has done right now, and what that game is doing just phenomenally compared to where it has been. Honestly, it's part of why Strive has been cool. There's a lot of fun characters in Strive.

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Q. It was revealed on Harada-san’s Twitter how Tekken came to really be a part of the EVO scene, and why they started doing announcements at community events - shoutout to Markman, he’s the best. I also read that Bandai Namco Entertainment and Bandai Namco Studios presidents will be in attendance. What do you hope executives of that level take away from seeing EVO live is?

Rick Thiher: In abstract, I hope what they take away from being at the event is that they have built something that is deeply important to an incredible number of people. That a community and a culture has developed around what they release as products, and that those products, when they are good, and when they are particularly serviced on a fan level, really propel those communities and that culture to grow, arguably exponentially. And I think that's a big part of Harada's post that makes sense.

Harada has obviously invested in growing the community, and Harada through Tekken, particularly over the last 10 years with what Bamco has done globally, has focused in on can they produce culture? And if you get to culture, does that produce enough resonance that the game can exist in all the different spaces?

And I think Tekken 8 is really bringing that to the fore. It's making a version of Tekken where when I talk to people about Heihachi and Kazuya and Akuma, people know all of these characters by name, where for years it was Jaguar Head Guy - that's King, and Robot Girl, and that's Alisa. And it takes time to build up that knowledge.

There's an equity that has to be invested into to get a return on that. And they, Harada and Michael Murray specifically, and even Nakatsu recently, and Yasuda-san, they have committed to that. And I think we are starting to see the fruits of that labor.

And what I am hoping, beyond anything else, is the takeaway is that that labor has demonstrable and intrinsic value, because the payoff to it is largely an intangible element. And so it's not easy to put on a spreadsheet, but it's easy to experience. And I think EVO is a great place for being able to bottle that experience in an impactful way that can hopefully be taken home and put into further investments into culture and not just product.

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Q. I’d also like to take this time to highlight something really interesting in the world of fighting games - Maximilian’s MVCI Beyond mod. It’s such a massive project, and it could do a lot to revive the “Infinite” and MVC community. However, my question is - what would the odds be of it showing up next year at EVO? Or is that something that would cause issues for any communication/work with Capcom?

Rick Thiher: It's honestly never something we've approached. I don't know how that conversation would go. I think my experience thus far has been that almost all of the fighting game publishers are enthusiastic about how enthusiastic the fanbase can be about their products and the products. It's worth an exploration. I have no insight, though.

Jason Parker: It would be certainly interesting, because I know Nintendo has famously shut down a bunch of fan mods before - such as for Smash over the years. But I would be really interested to see if Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite Beyond could make it to EVO - if nothing else as a side tournament. But it would be rad to see that on the main stage.

Rick Thiher: It's an interesting thing to consider. It's an interesting Pandora's box to want to dive into, actually. I don't know. Something that has to get looked into if there's enough fervor around it to push for it.

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Q. I know some people are disappointed/delighted in some of the game’s low numbers - MK1 in particular. I know last time we talked about the game perhaps falling off, but I don’t really think that’s the case. The current competitive season ends this month - was there any talk with NRS or the pro scene organizers about putting EVO on the list and extending the season?

Rick Thiher: So Netherrealm's competitive cycle is obviously not inclusive of EVO currently. Has been in the past. Probably will be again in the future. It's not something that we actively explored prior to this year's show. Is something that we've actively explored in the past. Just wasn't going to line up.

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Q. One of the things EVO’s perhaps known the most for are “EVO Moments” - some of the most ridiculous, hype-filled moments in all of fighting games. Do you have a particular favorite EVO moment?

Rick Thiher: It's very hard at this point to not heavily weigh towards that first Arslan Ash moment at EVO Japan. Because when we talk about EVO as a global event, as we talk about EVO as something that truly has that “Any Given Sunday” quality for anyone, Arslan's appearance at EVO Japan and what that has done, not just for him, not just for Pakistan, not just the players around him, but for Tekken as a whole, even for Red Bull Esports to a degree, doesn't happen without that moment. And so it is for me, just like “Moment 37”, 20 years ago, its impact at a global scale through the connectivity that the community has, that the event has, the global stage presents.

And I don't know if there's anything that trumps that for me in terms of just overarching moments. There's lots of little things where I've got favorites, like I've had friends beat international players and then come home and be like, “I didn't get out of pools at the local and I beat so-and-so at EVO and I'm great”. And it's like, “please prove it's not a fluke”.

But when I think about what EVO's supposed to represent and what I hope that EVO can be and what EVO can do, that moment with Arslan, I think is pretty definitive.

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Q. EVO is for everyone - not just fighting game fans. I know quite a few people that got into fighting games by watching the tournament on Twitch. For newcomers who are trying to find a game to invest in, or to simply enjoy, what advice do you have?

Rick Thiher: I think finding the right game is always an interesting stressor because the genre has such a wealth of variety in it, particularly at this point, that I'm not sure if that stress roots from, I didn't like the most popular game available today, or if the stress roots from, I'm just not going to find one.

Because I've almost never found anyone who doesn't find one. The sheer difference across that breadth is too vast. I think it's always okay to stress about costs.

I think live events are expensive, in and out of EVO or in and out of gaming as a whole, live events are expensive. So it has to be something that you want to make an investment into, either on a competitive level or a social level or a fandom level. I think the nice part about EVO is it gives you an opportunity to do all three of those investments at once, particularly if you've taken any time to invest into your local community or online ecosystems or even this Discord server full of 20 players who just always compete Tuesdays at 7 pm.

Having those pockets of personal investment and then being able to wrap those into one large experience I think is how you offset some of that stress. But by and large, I think EVO offers enough that that stress goes away when you hit the show floor. There is enough there that the expense and the experience validates the effort that goes into producing the finances necessary to commit to going to an international convention.

It's a festival experience at this point, and so it has to be able to produce an experience that's worth festival pricing.

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Q. And finally, our last question - Other than EVO and Combo Breaker, what are your favorite tournaments to watch/compete in? Because for me, it’s got to be CEO.

Rick Thiher: I think for me at the moment, I'm going to be inconclusive and go with a couple of things instead of one. I really enjoy Master Cup. I think Master Cup is an excellent experience, and particularly as someone who has to travel in for it with a team of friends, it's very hard for that to not be a great show as an attendee.

I think UFA in France is presented incredibly well and is always entertaining to watch. And if I circle down to just what to watch, there isn't a focus on the attendance quality to it, I love Can Opener because getting to spend an evening with Yipes and the crew, even from home, there's something very pure to that, kind of akin to watching TNS for the Marvel Friday shows.

TNS does a lot of great online tournaments, and does a lot of great shows, but that Friday show with Tong and Proxy and Southpaw, there is a love of what they're doing and a love of the game that just permeates that entire show every single week. You get that with the Yipes on Can Opener and that is deeply appreciated as somebody watching from home. And then outside of that, the hours I'm actually awake to watch Tatakai Tuesday, that one's always fun too.

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EVO 2024 will take place from Friday, July 19, 2024, through Sunday, July 21, 2024. It’s the biggest fighting game tournament of the year, and this year’s event promises to be even more incredible than last years.