Way of the Fighter is a Street Fighter card game in everything but name

A new challenger is vying for the fighting game crown on the tabletop.

Way of the Fighter is a card and dice game clearly heavily inspired by classic arcade fighters such as Street Fighter, which hopes to recreate the action of a frantic one-on-one brawl.

While the core gameplay is powered by decks of cards that make up each fighter’s moveset, with the ability to customisable their attacks by mixing character-specific abilities with generic actions, Way of the Fighter also includes a central board where two standees move and leap about on an arena track, adding a sense of positioning and movement to the strategy.

Players roll dice and pull off moves using the cards, striking, grabbing, blocking and throwing projectiles. The dice are used to judge the order in which attacks play out, and – just like in the video games – successful attacks can cancel your opponent’s move, unless they happen to counter.

If the Street Fighter feel wasn’t strong enough, Way of the Fighter is being released in two standalones boxes on February 14th, Super and Turbo – which sound very familiar indeed.

Each box includes five characters, cards to customise their moves and a unique arena, with expansions set to swiftly follow. Combining the ten characters and two boxes enables a tag mode, where four people can play at once.