Black History Month ’23, The World of Virtua Fighter & Fighting Vipers

The SEGA fighting game franchises have representation through Jeffry McWild, Vanessa Lewis, and Grace.

In October 1993, Sega launched the first installment of its Virtua Fighter series and it would begin the trend of 3D fighting games. The product was different from the 2D cel-shaded sprites that you would see in Street Fighter and it was different from the 2D digitized sprites that you would see in Mortal Kombat.

Virtua Fighter would grow into a successful fighting game franchise and making Sega one of the better-known studios of the genre. The creation of the game would lead to the creation of Tekken as many people who developed the game would leave Sega and work for Namco.

With this being Black History Month, I felt the need to type up a piece that’s dedicated to all of the Black characters in Virtua Fighter and by extension, Fighting Vipers.

#1 — Jeffry McWild, Virtua Fighter

Jeffry is an Aboriginal-Australian fighter who specializes in the Greek fighting style known as Pankration. He…