These 5 Fighting Games Need Rollback Netcode ASAP!

Arc System Works' joint project with Bandai Namco happens to be one of its top-selling fighters. Every corner of the FGC came together to hop into Dragon Ball FighterZ simply because it offered them the chance to play an excellent anime fighter starring their favorite childhood heroes. There's so much to adore about this 3v3 battler...except for its delay-based netcode. It becomes that much harder to counter players Dragon Rushing and Super Dashing you to death when most of your match connections aren't that strong.

If Bandai Namco wants to sell millions more copies of FighterZ, we think they should give Arc Sys the funds and the go-ahead to greatly improve its online capabilities. The multitude of system changes given to FighterZ has made it even more of an EVO main stage-worthy fighter. Now's the time to add rollback in order to bring it up to par with Arc Sys' other rollback-enabled titles.

The Under Night In-Birth series feels like a natural progression of the Melty Blood games, which makes sense considering that developer French Bread is responsible for working on both games. 2021's Melty Blood: Type Lumina is out now and has done a lot to bring new fans into the game's niche FGC scene and also please its super dedicated player base. That new anime fighter has a lot of great things going for it, yet its rollback netcode isn't as good as it should be. With further updates and some fine extra fine-tuning, we're confident Lumina's online can improve by leaps and bounds.

Once French Bread gets over its online growing pains with Lumina, they should take the lessons they learned there and apply them to the latest version of Under Night's online code implementation. Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late [cl-r] (that name still trips us out...) deserves to prosper with rollback netcode just like its contemporaries.

The 2019 return of SNK's acclaimed weapons fighter was a highly welcome one. Getting the honor to take control of Haohmaru and the rest of the game's expert combatants in a new series entry was incredible. The game's expanded roster has done even more to make Samurai Shodown a destination fighter that has its own flavor in comparison to the fighting game genre's biggest IPs.

But for as much praise the game gets for its visuals, roster, combat mechanics, and modes, it gets a ton of flack for relying on delay-based netcode. A fighting game that's as methodical as Sam Sho needs rollback netcode just so players can have an easier time mapping out their attacks and capitalizing on their foes' costly mistakes. Now we realize SNK's attention is obviously dedicated to The King of Fighters XV at the moment. But we still think it'd be worth it for them to show some love to its other main fighting game IP with a proper online system overhaul.

Now is this request a bit too much to ask for? It might be. It seems like all the post-launch support for Soulcalibur VI has come to an end and left the game in its complete state. Even still, we'd love for Bandai Namco's 3D weapons fighter to get a new lease on life with a netcode overhaul that blesses it with rollback.

Not only should Soulcalibur VI get a new and improved netcode system implementation, but it should also receive a complete overhaul of its lackluster lobby system. The choppiness we sadly experience during a decent amount of our matches online in this game needs to become a thing of the past. We know Tekken 7 gets most of Bandai Namco's attention and resources these days, but we think it's also worth dedicating some time & funds towards improving Soulcalibur VI's shoddy netcode implementation.

Once the pandemic forced the FGC to rely on online gaming to run their tournaments, everyone came to realize a sad fact - delay-based netcode just isn't it, fam. That sentiment among fighting game players truly hampered the growth and FGC presence of Granblue Fantasy: Versus, which launched in March 2020. Because of its less than stellar netcode, that Arc Sys anime fighter stumbled right out of the gate and faltered once everyone was relegated to online-only tourneys.

The game had a good showing at CEO 2021 amongst a packed house full of in-person players. But in order for Versus to regain its steam and garner a much larger player base, it needs to implement rollback netcode at some point. Versus is still getting updates in the form of character balance changes and new DLC roster members. With mega entities like Arc Sys and Cygames still pumping time and attention into Versus, we think it'd be great for them to change its online netcode for the better.