Evo 2018: World's biggest fighting game tournament ditches Marvel vs Capcom for the first time

The lineup of games for this year's Evo fighting game tournament has been announced but Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, the highly-anticipated crossover fighter released only last year, is missing from it.

As expected, the critically lauded Dragon Ball FighterZ makes it debut as does Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 and Arc System Works' BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, despite it not getting a retail release in the West until June, just two months before the tournament takes place.

The rest of the list is comprised of returning titles Injustice 2, Super Smash Bros Melee, Super Smash Bros for Wii U, Tekken 7 and, of course, Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition.

This year's event will mark the first time in the tournament's 22-year history that a version of Marvel vs Capcom has not been played.

It comes as a shocking indictment of the game itself, which received middling reviews and failed to meet the sales targets of developer and publisher Capcom. Not being included at Evo would indicate the game does not have a long-term future in the fighting game scene.

Evo 2018's lineup was announced by tournament co-founder Joey Cuellar and host Mark Julio on a Twitch stream last night (6 February).

Cuellar revealed that Guilty Gear, both versions of Smash Bros, Tekken, Dragon Ball and Street Fighter will feature on finals day on Sunday.

Evo 2018 will take place from 3-5 August at the Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas.

Last year's tournament comprised Street Fighter 5, the Super Smash Bros games, Tekken 7, BlazBlue: Central Fiction, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, Injustice 2 and The King of Fighters 15.

The champions looking to defend their crowns at this year's torunament are Street Fighter champ Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi, Tekken 7's Hyun-jin "JDCR" Kim, Smash Bros Wii U's Saleem "Salem" Young, Smash Bros Melee's Adam "Armada" Lindgren and Injustice 2's Ryan "Dragon" Walker.