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EVO 2022 will not have Super Smash Bros. after Nintendo declines

By Andrew Lin

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - AUGUST 04: Masato 'Bonchan' Takahashi of Red Bull eSports celebrates after winning the Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition grand championship during day three of the 2019 Evolution Championship Series at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on August 04, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - AUGUST 04: Masato 'Bonchan' Takahashi of Red Bull eSports celebrates after winning the Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition grand championship during day three of the 2019 Evolution Championship Series at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on August 04, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images) /
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The annual Evolution Championship Series fighting game tournament will not feature Super Smash Bros., after Nintendo declined to have the game appear.

According to a Twitter post by EVO, Nintendo chose not to continue running Super Smash Bros. at the landmark fighting tournament. EVO hopes to have Smash again in the future.

EVO 2022 will not have Super Smash Bros. after Nintendo declines

Super Smash Bros. has been present at every EVO from 2007 to 2021. The tournament series was purchased by Sony in 2021, and the future of Nintendo and Microsoft owned fighting games was

Sony’s acquisition of the tournament may have been the final nail in the coffin for Nintendo’s willingness to allow third parties to represent Smash.


Nintendo, a company notoriously protective of their brands, had some previous snafus with tournaments and the fighting game community at large.

At Apex 2015, one of the rare tournaments to be officially sponsored by Nintendo, was relocated after a fire alarm was pulled and the fire marshal determined the venue to be unsafe and lacked the proper permits to host an event that big.

I remember when this went down it wasn’t a good look for the fighting game community, especially in the eyes of Nintendo. Further issues would arise when over 50 sexual misconduct allegations raised against prominent players in the Smash community surfaced in 2020.

EVO’s president at the time, Joey Cueller, was also accused of misconduct with minors. That EVO 2020 was canceled due to the pandemic and the online tournament was canceled after most of their sponsors pulled out after the Cueller incident.

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EVO 2021 was the first tournament after the Sony acquisition, but did not feature Smash. At the time, EVO’s Director of Business Development Mark Julio said that EVO would remain open to other platforms, but it doesn’t seem like that wishful thinking is panning out.

It’s entirely on Nintendo if they want their game featured at the year’s biggest fighting game event, but there’s little incentive for their involvement in the fighting game community at large.