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Fighting games always make great gifts, especially for the 2023 holiday season. There’s never been a better time to be a fan of the genre or start playing them.
While 2024 is no doubt going to have several blockbuster titles - Tekken 8 and Project L among them - having knowledge of the fundamentals in one game will take you far in several others.
I wanted to focus on games that still likely have an active fanbase so you can get online matches in.
There was a wealth of other games I wanted to include but couldn’t justify, such as any of the older BlazBlue titles. They are easily my favorites outside of Street Fighter Alpha 3.
When it comes to the 2023 holiday season, many of these fighting games will likely be on sale - or are already reasonably priced.
Which fighting games would make great gifts for the 2023 holiday season?
1) Street Fighter 6
Of course, Street Fighter 6 makes the 2023 holiday season gift list. It’s likely to be the best fighting game of the year by what I predict will be a landslide.
With a huge roster of amazing characters alongside fun DLC ones, it also has a great PVE mode. You can create your own avatars and battle them against players online in what has become a very popular gameplay mode.
Street Fighter 6 had to succeed, though. SF5 started off as a crushing failure, and it took years to build that reputation back up. If you’re going to get any fighting game this 2023 holiday season, make it SF6.
2) Mortal Kombat 1
Do you like gruesome, violent fatalities? Were you a fan of previous MK games, or perhaps the Injustice fighting games? If so, Mortal Kombat 1 is definitely for you. Personally, it’s not one of my favorite franchises, but it was when I was a kid.
Is it weird to get such a violent game for the 2023 holiday season? Of course not. It’s a tightly controlled fighting game with awesome characters and equally disgusting finishing moves.
While the Kameo system is controversial, I’m personally a really big fan of how it can enhance combos and extend them.
3) Guilty Gear: Strive
Guilty Gear: Strive is right up there with a wealth of fighting games I love but I’m also terrible at.
Strive has done a lot to really amp things up this year, and with fun DLC characters and intense combat, I think there’s still a lot to love about this game. If we aren’t going to get a new BlazBlue anytime soon - not counting Cross Tag Battle - I’m happy with Strive.
The visuals are top-notch, and I’ve always felt each character had a unique feel. Admittedly, they also feel like characters from previous ArcSys games, but that’s not really a bad thing. If I could pick a game on this list to find time to get better at, it would be this 2023 holiday season title.
4) Melty Blood: Type Lumina
I’ve reviewed a few iterations of the Melty Blood title over the years, and Type Lumina, the latest one, feels just as intense as the previous releases.
Based on Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon, it’s a 2D anime fighter with a lot of heart; it was, as far as I was concerned, 2021’s best fighter.
It’s not just a Type-Moon fanservice game but an incredibly well-put-together fighting game. Fans of the Type-Moon visual novels who somehow missed out on the fighters have some catching up to do. Why not pick this up for them during the 2023 holiday season?
5) Tekken 7
Tekken 7 might be several years old now, and Tekken 8 might be on the way - and it’s awesome, by the by. That notwithstanding, Tekken 7 is still important to pick up.
The fundamentals you’ll learn by getting better at Tekken 7 will no doubt carry over, so pick it up during the 2023 holiday season. Personally, I liked the guest characters more than the main roster.
Once I saw Akuma was in the game, I had no choice but to dive face-first into Tekken 7. 3D fighters are all about rhythm, and a wise man once told me that if you can play rhythm games, you can get into Tekken. I don’t think he was wrong.
Pick this up during the 2023 holiday season to get ready for 2024’s potential GOTY.
6) Skullgirls: 2nd Encore
If I could think of one fighting game that is overlooked more than any other - and unjustly so - it would have to be Skullgirls.
With a gorgeous 1930s art style, brilliant colors, and intense tag-team gameplay, Skullgirls is one of the best fighters you’ve ever played. It’s an inexpensive 2023 holiday season gift, and it’s one worth giving.
In particular, Skullgirls: 2nd Encore is an upgrade to the base game. It gives players all the DLC characters (Squigly, Big Band, Eliza, Beowulf, Robo-Fortune) the Skullgirls Mobile/Switch color palettes, which provide each character with at least 27 colors.
If you’ve somehow skipped the title because it’s inexpensive, don’t equate that to the strength of its gameplay. Skullgirls is amazing; go play Skullgirls.
7) Dragon Ball FighterZ
I was hesitant to put Dragon Ball FighterZ on this list, I won’t lie to you. Not for the reasons you might think, though.
The balance patches have been wildly out of control, but I think that’s a good thing for the game. For a while, it felt pretty stale, but I think the updates have been a boon, if nothing else, to make the game exciting again.
Even if it’s not a perfect game, it’s a beautiful vision of what a Dragon Ball Fighting game can be. The character’s movesets mirror the anime and manga in a way that no other fighting game has.
The only real problem the game has, in my estimation, is that it has too many Gokus. There are so many Saiyans/Saiyan fusion characters. I think the developers forgot that the franchise has other characters in it than Goku and Vegeta.
As far as the 2023 holiday season gift ideas go, I stand by Dragon Ball FighterZ as one of the fighting games to buy. It’s still a ton of fun for any fan of the Akira Toriyama franchise.
Other fighting games could easily make this list, and as we get closer to the 2023 holiday season, we’ll see about updating it with more. However, 2023 has easily been one of the best fighting game years in a long time. It’s a trend we hope sticks around.
