The article lists the ten greatest fighting games of all time, based on gameplay, design, combat, originality, influence, polish, networking, fan opinion, critical acclaim, and overall quality.
Video games are all about the gameplay, and while that can include puzzle solving, exploration, and role-playing, it is mostly about the combat, whether that be shooting, slashing, or punching.
With games such as Elden Ring and Halo, this medium is ripe with a variety of options to beat stuff up. However, why complicate things with fantasy, sci-fi, and shooters when fans can simply play fighting games? The fighting genre is defined by its 2D side-scrolling style, where characters battle it out until only one is left standing. This ultimate battle between players is riveting, which is why this list will rank the ten greatest fighting games of all time.
Based on gameplay, design, combat, originality, influence, polish, networking, fan opinion, critical acclaim, and overall quality, these are the best games to beat something up. 10 'Injustice 2' Superhero games have been getting better, but DC, in particular, has always delivered the best of the best, including a fantastic fighting game, Injustice 2. With Superman's insurgency stopped by Batman, a new villain threatens the world: Brainiac.
Allying with the remnants of Superman's regime, Batman challenges the alien villain to save the planet. Made by NetherRealm Studios, a veteran in the fighting game scene, Injustice 2 features polished, brawling gameplay that is a staple of the company. The most popular DC heroes and villains come together for a fighting game extravaganza.
The story isn't anything special, but the armor system and customizable characters, paired with the interactable stadium and in-depth controls, create a love letter to the DC universe. 9 'Dragon Ball FighterZ' Like Injustice 2, many other franchises get fighting game adaptations, and one of the best comes from the hit anime, Dragon Ball. While there are many games in this franchise, Dragon Ball FighterZ is the best.
A new Android descends onto Earth, instantly reviving classic villains and creating evil clones of Goku's friends, starting a war between old enemies and new friends. No anime game is as good as Dragon Ball FighterZ, a sci-fi video game masterpiece, and it achieved this feat by delivering a well-crafted fighting experience that honors the series while being something new. The captivating visuals create an explosive and dynamic feast that is a spectacle to witness.
However, it doesn't overshadow the fast-paced gameplay with combo attacks and strategic chess-match fights. 8 'The King of Fighters '98 Fighting games have been around for a while, but they are known for the arcade era, which expanded into the 1990s. Aptly named, The King of Fighters '98 is one of the best fighting games.
It isn't the most well-known franchise and doesn't have a canon story, but it is supposed to be a Dream Match between alive and dead characters from different times with separate allegiances. While the '80s were the peak of the arcade era, the 1990s had plenty of hits, including this one, which captures that nostalgic feeling with classic combat and great visuals. The King of Fighters '98 has a magnificently balanced roster where characters offer different strengths.
This perfect selection, paired with its refined combat, results in a polished fighting game masterpiece that is tactile and thrilling. COLLIDER. Collider · Quiz Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt Five legends.
Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back. 🎖️Rambo 🍸James Bond 🏺Indiana Jones 🔧John McClane 🎭Ethan Hunt FIND YOUR PARTNER → QUESTION 1 / 10THE MISSION 01 You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you. ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart.
DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 10TRAVEL STYLE 02 You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission. AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow.
BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel.
The destination matters, not the method. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 10UNDER FIRE 03 You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive.
ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 10DOWNTIME 04 The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are. AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation.
DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 10COMMUNICATION 05 How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability. APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost.
BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 10THE VILLAIN 06 Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership. AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there.
BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them.
Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 10LOYALTY 07 Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters. ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there.
BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 10TOOLKIT 08 What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had. ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested.
CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 9 / 10THE COST 09 Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down.
EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 10 / 10THE LAST STAND 10 It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one. AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending.
Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next.
ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been. REVEAL MY PARTNER → Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is… Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
YOUR PARTNER Rambo Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home.
What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know. YOUR PARTNER James Bond Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true.
James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious.
But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
YOUR PARTNER Indiana Jones Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside.
He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about.
Assuming you survive them. YOUR PARTNER John McClane Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks.
John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts.
Yippee-ki-yay. YOUR PARTNER Ethan Hunt Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist.
He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 7 'Tekken 5' Out of all the fighting games, there are a few franchises that stick out as legendary, such as Tekken. Out of all the great games in this series, Tekken 5 takes the cake as the best overall experience. After the death of their leader, the corporation is taken over by the undead father, who announces the fifth King of the Iron Fist Tournament, with the winner taking over the company.
All the Tekken games are great, but Tekken 5 changed the formula and the way the franchise operates, because anything else would be a downgrade. Returning to its fast and fluid roots, this game also delivers rich worldbuilding and fascinating lore to expand the universe.
Tekken 5 is a masterpiece that mixes its gimmicks with tight gameplay that creates a definitive entry in the franchise. 6 'Guilty Gear Strive' Some of the best fighting games are older titles, but the newest one featured on this list is Guilty Gear Strive, which came out in 2021. Sol embarks on one last mission to confront his former friend and the creator of a deadly weapon, hoping to end the hundred-year tragedy of the Gears Project.
It may have had the least time to establish itself, but Guilty Gear Strive is already a modern classic and must-play fighting experience. This game features one of the best and most dynamic art styles on this list, showcasing its vibrant style and art direction with visual spectacle.
The Roman Cancel system offers more gameplay opportunities that spice up the perfected formula, making Guilty Gear Strive an innovative modern masterpiece. 5 'Mortal Kombat' Out of all the fighting game franchises on this list, Mortal Kombat is arguably the most popular and relevant, and with so many classics, Mortal Kombat 9, also known simply as Mortal Kombat, is the best. After Armageddon, Raiden sends visions to his past self, who must interpret these messages in order to stop the events of the first three games from happening.
As a franchise, Mortal Kombat is highlighted by its brutal style and overly gory combat, and this game dials it up to eleven. The fatalities are gruesome, and the story is surprisingly complex for a fighting game. This seminal title completely redefined the gameplay and style, and also saved the franchise.
Mortal Kombat ignited that competitive edge among gamers that most games don't, becoming a staple in one of the most iconic gaming series. 4 'Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire' When it comes to fighting games, it is hard to beat Capcom, which has many incredible franchises, including Darkstalkers, and the third one, Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, is the greatest. When the demon lord learns that his realm is collapsing, he creates a dimension and brings the strongest darkstalkers into it, hoping to harvest their souls for power.
This hyper-stylized gothic game is superbly macabre, showing off its avant-garde aesthetic for all to see. Vampire Savior is more than visually stunning; it is also a technical marvel that abandons the round system in favor of an uninterrupted fight.
The gameplay is blisteringly fast, and Vampire Savior rewards an aggressive style where momentum is the key to victory, making it one of the best video games of the 1990s. 3 'Soulcalibur' Fighting games were mostly 2D side-scrolling titles, but the 1990s started the shift, specifically with the groundbreaking game Soulcalibur. The Soul Edge is a legendary artifact that holds great power, and the potential of this sword gathers dozens of the strongest warriors in the 16th Century to find it.
Some want to destroy it and make sure no one uses its powers for evil, while others want to harness it for themselves. Soulcalibur is one of the highest-rated games on Metacritic, and for good reason, as it revolutionized the fighting genre and the gaming industry. Indeed, introducing 3D rotating movement innovated and laid the blueprint for the genre going forward.
This fluid movement was a technical achievement that enhanced arcade gaming, and the port was even better, bringing this style to home consoles. 2 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate' Nintendo is known for its accessible gameplay style and innovative mechanics, which are felt in its fighting franchise, Super Smash Bros. From the game-changing title on the GameCube to the fan-favorite on the Wii, the best is the most recent, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
In the campaign mode, a cosmic entity captures all Nintendo characters, leaving only Kirby to save the day. Subscribe for expert fighting-game analysis and picks Get in-depth breakdowns, matchup analysis, curated top-game lists, and design deep-dives when you subscribe to the newsletter — essential reading for fans seeking ongoing insight into fighting games and wider gaming coverage. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
You can unsubscribe anytime. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the largest video game crossover, bringing characters such as Steve from Minecraft, Sora from Kingdom Hearts, and Snake from Metal Gear Solid into one game. Its expansive roster, creative spirits, familiar items, and imaginative level design pair nicely together, creating a new experience every match.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a smorgasbord of fighting that balances combat through chaos and unscripted events. Over-the-top, unexpected, and dynamic, this modern video game masterpiece is a collaboration of creativity and passion. 1 'Street Fighter II' The top of this list could have gone either way, but the most influential and popular fighting game franchise is arguably Street Fighter, and while the second and third games are both masterpieces, Street Fighter II is the magnum opus.
A worldwide fighting tournament hosted by the ruthless M. Bison is underway, and some of the strongest fighters on the planet convene to give each other a good beatdown. Street Fighter II isn't just the greatest fighting game; it is one of the best video games of all time, proving to be the most iconic and influential by delivering a perfect brawling experience, whether fans play at home or in the arcade.
The six-button layout, combinations, and introduction of special moves were foundational mechanics that influenced the history of video games, even further highlighting the influence it had on the industry. Street Fighter II is a landmark of the 1990s and the definitive fighting game that stands atop this list.
Street Fighter Action Drama Release Date October 16, 2026 Director Kitao Sakurai Writers Dalan Musson Cast Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Callina Liang, Cody Runnels, David Dastmalchian, Joe Anoa'i, 50 Cent, Jason Momoa, Vidyut Jammwal, Eric Andre, Andrew Schulz, Orville Peck, Olivier Richters, Hirooki Goto, Rayna Vallandingham, Alexander Volkanovski, Kyle Mooney, Melanie Jarnson Powered by Expand Collapse
Fighting Games Video Games Combat Elven Ring Halo Dragon Ball Fighterz The King Of Fighters '98 Injustice 2 Networking Game Design
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
William Katt Launches Greatest American Hero Comic Book KickstarterWilliam Katt launches a Kickstarter for the Greatest American Hero graphic novel from AMP Comics later this year
Read more »
Bus riders to Montgomery retrace old steps while fighting a new fightThousands of people rallied Saturday in Montgomery, Alabama, to push back against conservative states' efforts to dismantle congressional districts that helped secure Black political representation.
Read more »
2026 NFL International Games Odds: Spreads, Lines For All 9 GamesNine international games will go down this season. Check out the odds for each now that the NFL schedule has dropped.
Read more »
China Box Office: ‘Dear You’ Holds Top Spot as ‘The Sheep Detectives’ Enters Top Five'Dear You' retained its position at the top of the China box office during the May 15–17 weekend, pulling in $41.5 million.
Read more »