Best Solo Esports Games In 2023
Although many esports are team-based games, such as CS:GO, League of Legends, and Apex Legends, others involve only a single competitor on each team.
These solo esports can be interesting to watch, since unlike
team-based games, the roster of your favorite team never really changes. Fans
can follow a single competitor like Star Craft ll legend Scarlett all the way
through her career, regardless of what organization she ends up playing with.
Here are some of the top active solo esports in 2023.
Super Smash Bros
Super Smash Bros is a smaller esports community, but what it
lacks in scale it more than makes up for with raw, unadulterated passion. This
small but dedicated group of fighting game enthusiasts rely on community-run
events and is not supported by the developer of the game, Nintendo. Most
esports are supported and, at least partly, run by the publisher of the esport
title, but this is not the case with Super Smash Bros.
The latest Smash Bros title is Super Smash Brothers
Ultimate, which was released in 2018. Since the game’s release there have been
over a dozen S-tier tournaments for Ultimate, including GENESIS 6, Super Smash
Con 2019, and Evo Japan 2023. Notable players in the Ultimate scene include
Joker main Leonardo “MkLeo” López Pérez and Princess Daisy main Ezra “Samsora”
Morris. MkLeo is the most successful player in the scene, having won Evo 2019
and Genesis 6, among other tournaments.
Another interesting aspect of the Smash scene is that it’s
made up of more than one game. Many professional players compete in Super Smash
Brothers Ultimate, while other professionals continue to compete in Super Smash
Brothers Melee, a game that is nearly two decades old. The game is so old, in
fact, that many tournaments are conducted on CRT TVs rather than more modern
technology, because CRTs feature no input lag for the original Gamecube.
Read more: 10 Best Esports Games In 2023
The earliest professional play in Melee started in 2004,
when MLG sponsored a Pro Circuit for the game. Although MLG’s Melee Pro Circuit
disbanded in 2007, competition has remained healthy over the past 13 years.
Most recently, in 2023, a mod called Project Slippi brought new life to the
competitive melee scene by offering both replays and online play, allowing
players to compete against each other even through the pandemic. Notable
players in the Melee scene include Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma, Adam “Armada”
Lindgren, and Joseph “Mango” Marquez.
Street Fighter
Another fighting game that provides intense solo competition
is Street Fighter. The first Street Fighter tournaments were hosted in small
arcades after the release of Street Fighter 2 in 1991.
Since then, the game has continued to grow in popularity. In
2004, the modern Street Fighter scene took root after a video of the Evo 2004
semifinals went viral. In the clip Justin “Marvellous” Wong was able to parry
the barrage of blows from Daigo “The Beast” Umehara to pull off a spectacular
comeback victory.
In 2013, Capcom launched its own pro league for Street
Fighter 4 called The Capcom Pro Tour which led up to an end of season
tournament called the Capcom Cup. This Pro Tour continues today for Street
Fighter V, which was released in 2016. There are also a number of other events
for Street Fighter outside the pro tour, including the Evo tournaments, as well
as the ELEAGUE’s own pro tour for the game.
Much like Smash Bros, Street Fighter is an incredible
spectator sport with a rich history of competitive play. Viewers don’t need to
know much about the specific techniques of the game to be wowed by the
incredible execution of professional players. There are very few esports that
produce the level of hype that can come out of a top-tier Street Fighter match,
and that makes it one of the best solo esports to watch or play in the world.
FIFA
The actual FIFA soccer league is a world-class franchise
sport, which hosts some of the largest sporting events in the world. What you
may not know is that the FIFA video game is one of the biggest esports in the
world in its own right. Perhaps it’s silly that one of the biggest esports in
the world is a soccer team simulation, but here we are.
FIFA has hosted the FIFA eWorld Cup, formerly known as the
FIFA Interactive World Cup, since 2004. Every year, it hosts massive online
qualifiers, which peaked at over 2.5 million players attempting to qualify in
2015, according to the Guinness World Records organization. Throughout the
years, various champions have risen and fallen. Most recently, Saudi player
Mosaad Al-Dossary won first place at the 2018 FIFA eWorld Cup and was the
runner-up at the 2019 event.
If you enjoy watching simulated soccer controlled by the
very best simulated soccer players in the world, look no further than the FIFA
eWorld Cup for your yearly fix of FIFA video game goodness. If simulated sports
is your thing, but soccer is not, there is also Madden Football and NBA 2k,
both of which also boast esports communities.
StarCraft
StarCraft is a real-time strategy game series set in a
science-fiction future. The game depicts a war between three factions, all of
whom bring with them unique playstyles, units, and abilities. The gameplay
consists of managing an economy to build an army and at the same time
controlling that army to defeat your opponent. The highly technical, fast-paced
game has captured the imagination of millions of players and viewers around the
world. The competitive version takes place in a one-vs-one tournament format.
Although many players are signed with teams, there is no teamplay involved in
StarCraft esports.
StarCraft is one of the games that catapulted the esports
scene into the mainstream world, at least in Korea. In 2003, Samsung, SK
Telecom, and other major South Korean companies sponsored a variety of
StarCraft teams after the game exploded in popularity upon release. Soon,
StarCraft competitions received televised status in South Korea on multiple
channels, which further rocketed the game’s popularity skyward.
In 2010, StarCraft 2 was released. The new game replaced the
aging StarCraft Broodwar, which was released in 1998. Although the StarCraft
scene may not be as huge as it once was, the game still represents one of the
most satisfying and interesting solo esports to watch. The newer games
immediately gained popularity, becoming the largest esport in the world in
2012. StarCraft saw a decline in interest between 2014 and 2016. The decline
was in part due to the surge of newer games like League of Legends, and also in
part due to a match-fixing scandal that saw the ban of star player Lee “Life”
Seung-Hyun.
Read more: What Is ESports History Top Teams Revenues And Risks
Although StarCraft is no longer the top dog in esports,
professionals continue to compete in both StarCraft 2 and the remaster of
StarCraft: Broodwar in international events hosted around the globe. In 2023,
Blizzard partnered with ESL and Dreamhack to create the ESL StarCraft Pro Tour.
They also announced that the global finals for StarCraft would be hosted at the
Intel Extreme Masters, rather than at BlizzCon like they have been in the past.
The pro tour has seen a revival in interest in the game and many of the best
players like Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn are still competing today.
Hearthstone
Another great solo esport from Blizzard Entertainment is
Hearthstone. Hearthstone is a one-vs-one dueling virtual card game which
resembles the format of Magic: The Gathering. Two players face off with decks
they built themselves, and the first player to exhaust the enemy health pool
using their cards wins the game.
Like the dueling card games it is based on, Hearthstone
lends itself well to competitive tournament formats. The professional scene for
the game started in 2013, with a Hearthstone tournament at BlizzCon. Since that
first tournament, hundreds more have taken place hosted by various esports
tournament organizers. Top players today compete in Grandmaster and Master
series tournaments which are hosted in a variety of different regions. The
prize pool of many of those tournaments exceeds $500,000 USD, so there is
definitely a lot of active interest in the sport.
Hearthstone is a great spectator sport. As a spectator you
have special knowledge that the players themselves don’t, since you can see
both players’ decks. There are also a number of complex and diverse strategies
on display, so no two games feel alike. If you are a fan of deck-based dueling
card games, Hearthstone is a visually interesting and well designed game to
both play and watch.
IRacing
IRacing is a racing simulation game designed to offer a relatively
authentic experience for players who want to race on professional racing tracks
around the world. The game features multi-class racing on dozens of different
real world tracks. The creators of the game also host six World Championship
Series races every year, including NASCAR and rallycross events. The events are
sanctioned by official sporting partners like NASCAR, IndyCar, USAC, and more.
This iRacing esport is a little bit different than the other
esports on this list. Most of the esports on this list involve playing games
with either a traditional controller or mouse and keyboard. IRacing on the
other hand takes place using full race sim setups, including floor pedals and a
steering wheel. The cars in the game also feature very realistic simulations of
real car handling. As a result, many professional drivers use iRacing to
practice for real races and many of them even compete in the esport itself.
During 2023, when many NASCAR races were cancelled, iRacing was even broadcast
on ESPN in lieu of in-person NASCAR events.
If you are a fan of traditional driving sports, iRacing is
right up your alley. The esport broadcasts even effectively simulate camera
angles that resemble the production of a real race and often feature
competitors that racing fans might recognize. If you don’t look too closely at
the broadcast, you might not even realize it was a video game.
