Virtua Fighter Crossroads – the new mainline instalment in the Virtua Fighter series – got a new character trailer last night, with the mysterious Bakunawa Killer taking the stage as the next roster reveal for the upcoming fighter.
Shown off at Evo 2026, the world’s biggest fighting game tournament, the trailer is a short blend of story moments and a brief move list demonstration.
However, who this Bakunawa Killer actually is remains a mystery! Another character in the game, Pai Chan, is seen to have knocked their mask off and expressed disbelief at the identity of this fighter. Us viewers, sadly, don’t get to see who it is.
That hasn’t stopped Virtua Fighter fans from speculating. The first prominent guess is – against all odds – this was Lau Chan. Another legacy character, Lau Chan knows a similar looking style of martial arts and as Pai Chan’s dad, would cause such a reaction in them. Some fans even pointed to a previous clash in the series between father and daughter as being closely referenced with this new trailer.
There are problems with this being true, though. For one, Lau Chan would be very old, and judging by their dexterity and hair colour they don’t appear to be an aged fighter. On top of that, Lau Chan was battling a seemingly incurable, life-threatening illness in previous games. Unless J6 (the in-universe baddie group) bailed him out or juiced him full of plasma.
An alternative is Lei-Fei. A Shaolin Monk, Lei-Fei was trying to learn the secrets of Lau Chan’s fighting in Virtua Fighter 5. Hoping to become his student, Lei-Fei eventually got bored waiting around and tried to kill Lau Chan. He failed to do so, and Lau vanished, leaving Lei-Fei frustrated. Given the leap forward in time with Virtua Fighter Crossroads, maybe they patched things up.
Other than those two main guesses, we’re talking about a video game so it could be anything – a long-lost sibling to Pai Chan; Lau Chan sent back in time, who knows? This new fighter does look mighty cool though, especially on the rain-slicked rooftop stage they’re coming with.
I suppose we’ll all be able to find out when Crossroads releases, which sadly isn’t until next year at some point.
