Idol Showdown, a fan-made fighting game featuring Hololive VTubers, is set to be released this spring for PC via Steam, according to a tweet posted by the project's dedicated Twitter account this week. Developed by indie studio Besto Games Team, Idol Showdown has reportedly been in production for more than two years, yet it was not fully unveiled to the public until this week.Alongside the announcement of the release window, Besto Games Team has revealed Idol Showdown's first trailer, showcasing a sample of the project's soundtrack, battle system, and eye-catching sprite art of such iconic Hololive VTubers as Korone Inugami, Shirakami Fubuki, and Nakiri Ayame. Only four of the project's eight playable VTubers have been announced thus far, with the rest to be revealed at a later date.In the past day alone, the tweet officially unveiling Idol Showdown to the public has gained staggering traction. At the time of this writing, the tweet has more than 20,000 likes, 6,000 retweets and quote-retweets, and 1.1 million views. Such high numbers as these are likely unprecedented for a fan-made project of infinitesimally niche appeal. A game based on the Hololive enterprise would be uniquely specialized enough in itself, but Idol Showdown occupies an even smaller niche by being specifically a fighting game for fans of Hololive.
All of this said, it appears Idol Showdown has seized the attention of the general fighting games community with its promises of day-one rollback netcode. "And just like that, it's in the top 20 best fighting games to play online," said Twitter user @Nothin_Funny on the game's inclusion of rollback netcode. "It's going to be wild if Idol Showdown has better netcode than Tekken 8," commented @PhPhreakinPham, while @medefici sagely added, "This is how you pitch a fighting game".
Rollback netcode is arguably the gold standard of online connectivity for fighting games, although it is yet to be the industry standard. While key developers in the fighting games scene have been embracing rollback netcode in recent years — even retroactively fitting rollback netcode into past titles — some of the bigger releases continue to rely on older modes of connectivity. It is a very welcome surprise to see such indie releases as Idol Showdown incorporate what many fans of the fighting genre are hoping will one day be the default.
Idol Showdown is set to launch for PC via Steam in spring this year. According to the official Twitter page, and true to the spirit of many a fan project, the game will be free to download and free to play.