Street Fighter 6 Cover Story – The Dawn of a New Era

Introduction

Every Street Fighter mainline entry is a significant milestone for the fighting game genre. Street Fighter V is the most popular Street Fighter entry. It received the highest critical acclaim. The game’s launch was perhaps the most turbulent of all Street Fighter games. However, something amazing emerged from all of this chaos. Thanks to the team’s persistence, post-launch roadmap, and an injection of new blood into the project’s leadership, Street Fighter V drastically improved its core gameplay, online play, content offerings, and more throughout its six-year lifespan.

Many of the team members who learned from these lessons are now back working on Street Fighter 6. This latest version offers many improvements and new features as well as a new design that pays homage to all previous entries. Street Fighter 6 is a continuation of the fight game genre that was pioneered by the original franchise.

We’ve already spent hours playing Street Fighter 6 thanks to an October closed beta test and several summer trade expos like Summer Game Fest and Tokyo Game Show, but we wanted to learn more. We traveled to Capcom’s headquarters in Osaka, Japan, to get more hands-on time and learn the inside story about Street Fighter 6 from the passionate team making it.

Combo for Returning Customers

The Returning Combo

Capcom began to think about its next Street Fighter game in 2018 Street Fighter V’s DLC plans were canceled, but Street Fighter V was enjoying a revival thanks to the post-launch fixes and updates. Street Fighter 6 featured two of those prominent figures, producer Shuhei Mizumoto and director Takayuki Nakayama.

Street Fighter V was no more with Capcom, and many of the older guard were now gone. The series was in a crossroads. Just as the shift in Street Fighter V upended Capcom’s fighting game development team, Street Fighter 6 ushers in an entirely new era for the franchise. Nakayama, Matsumoto and other new perspectives were vital to the team’s development.

Street Fighter decided to take the lessons learned from V and build upon them. Street Fighter III’s parrying system and Street Fighter V’s modern style of fighting are obvious to long-time Street Fighter fans. Street Fighter Alpha has its multi-tiered super gauges. But it’s the most iconic entry in the series that inspired the team the most.

“The concept I received from Nakayama-san was that we wanted to take it back to almost what it was during the Street Fighter II era,” says producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, who has been with Capcom for more than three decades. “We wanted to make another Street Fighter game that’s not just for existing fans of the series, but for everyone and get that same feeling where all types of gamers are falling in love with fighting games … with Street Fighter. That idea was brought up Nakayama–san and resonated with me strongly. It is a challenge, but it’s a challenge worth taking.”

Street Fighter 6 takes cues from those past games but ups the ante by adding several new modes and features on top of the terrific 2D fighting the series is known for – a tall ask from the relatively less-experienced team. “It took time for us to convince certain people – decision-makers – outside of the team to explain why these new features are so necessary,” Nakayama says. “We are trying to accomplish a lot in comparison to other fighting games, but we want Street Fighter 6 to be important and maybe a gateway for a lot of people to get themselves involved and excited about a fighting game.”

Tsuchiya used her experience and knowledge to provide the team with the support they needed in achieving this vision. To prevent unrealistic release deadlines, Tsuchiya started advocating for the core team of developers. According to Tsuchiya, he’s successfully prevented a repeat of V’s launch.

“It’s very rare to see games come to fruition where they were able to deliver everything the team was aiming for,” Tsuchiya says. “There’s always some sort of compromise that had to be made or ideas that had to be scrapped due to budget, schedule, resource issues. But for this time around, regarding the fundamental things that Nakayama-san wanted to accomplish with his dream project, it seems like we haven’t really had to make any sorts of omissions or compromises for this title.”

Capcom has supported Street Fighter 6’s development, allowing it to make something extraordinary even within the context of one the most loved series of video games. With a new era of developers ready to usher in a new generation of Street Fighter, the sixth mainline entry gives fans something that feels like a 360-degree view of the franchise – something that pulls from those previous games while also giving players something wholly fresh and modern. Street Fighter 6 is ambitious, but through strong gameplay and a seemingly realized vision, it’s poised to deliver on those promises.

You Must Drive to Survive

Drive for Survival

Street Fighter 6 takes elements from various entries to the series in order to develop its fighting style. But at its core, Street Fighter 6 feels like an amalgamation of previous games. Players still have access to the light, medium, and heavy attacks of past games, as well as throws and special moves that require specific inputs to pull off; throwing a Hadoken or Shoryuken feels as good as it did in the ’90s. Street Fighter 6 also adds the Drive system. It operates on six segments of a meter.

The Drive meter works in a similar way to a stamina system. Each Drive move you perform depletes a segment of your continuously recharging stock. You start with all six of your bars charged, which prevents players spamming powerful Drive moves. This also helps fights go off to a great start.

“In comparison with Street Fighter V, the intention with the V-Trigger system was we wanted to have strong options towards the latter half of the match,” Nakayama says. “We wanted to go a different route for 6, having all that excitement and freedom from the very beginning of the fight.”

Since these Drive bars allow access to different styles of moves, it plays into one of the development team’s main goals: giving players the freedom to play how they want. You can make as many of the meter segments that you need. The defensive Drive Parry, for example, allows you to dodge incoming attacks when timed properly. Drive Rush allows you to move forward from an attack, or parry it for additional combo possibilities. Meanwhile, those who want to go on the offensive can activate Drive Impact, which explodes with a splash of paint and can continue through an opponent’s attack. You can also find Overdrives and powerful variations of EX-style special moves, such as those from previous games.

It worked great even though I have very limited Drive System knowledge. Though Drive Parry feels like it will have the widest utility in disrupting my opponents’ attack flow, the highlights of my matches involved pulling off powerful Overdrive moves just as my opponent thought they were getting the upper hand. With how effective this system was for me in the short time I experimented with it, I can’t wait to fully explore just how impactful it is once I come closer to mastering its intricacies.

“One of the things we felt that was important to do was to make the actual moves associated with this system relatively easy to perform,” Nakayama says. “That’s something we prioritized. It’s a deep and complex system but relatively simple in execution.”

Super Arts returns to Drive. These moves, which debuted in Street Fighter III, pull additional influence from the Alpha series’ combo system. There are three different Super Arts for each character that can be used in matches. Overdrive moves take the place of EX Specials from past games (and that mechanic is tied to a separate gauge), meaning Street Fighter 6’s Super Arts grant players more freedom of when they want to use it.

These mechanics combine to make a tight and satisfying fighting system. It feels great in motion. To perfect my fighting style, I enjoyed combining Drive tactics with the Super Arts. By combining these moves with the rest of the tools at my disposal, I already felt like a better player than I’ve been with previous Street Fighter titles – a testament to how the team designed this game to be approachable. However, Capcom didn’t stop there in making sure Street Fighter 6 is among the most player-friendly entries in series history.

Modern Dynamism

Modern Dynamism

Street Fighter 6 was created with the goal of making Street Fighter 6 fun for all players, no matter their level of skill. The Drive system can be as accessible as the new mechanics in Street Fighter 6, but Nakayama and his team found a way to make Street Fighter 6 fun for everyone. They created different control options. Each control option caters to a different group of players.

Modern controls simplify and remap gameplay while Classic controls provide the best gameplay. Modern controls map throws, special maneuvers, Drive Parry and Drive Impact to single buttons. The buttons for kicks or punches are now replaced with single buttons, allowing for more agnostic light and medium attacks.

The point of Modern controls wasn’t to deliver an “easy mode” but rather to give those less familiar with fighting games another option to jump into the fun while still requiring skill. “We have to consider that this series has been going on for 35 years now, and someone who’s been playing the games for 35 years might know a little more than someone who’s never touched a Street Fighter game,” Nakayama says.

The modern controls are applicable to all game modes. This raises questions about the integrity of competitiveness. How would equally-matched players fare if they used a simpler control system? Currently, the team is exploring options like making Modern control specials weaker, so players are encouraged to use the inputs, or making it so it doesn’t allow you to select between low, medium, or high of the special move. But since Classic controls already offer more precision in selecting your attacks, the team isn’t overly concerned about competitive imbalance.

Though Modern controls may sound like training wheels in some ways, Nakayama says there will never be any pressure from the game for players to “graduate” to Classic controls. Nakayama believes that high-level players can excel using Modern controls in competitive settings. “We feel that if a player is comfortable with Modern Controls and they’re happy with that, then that’s totally fine,” he says. “It’s not like the game is going to encourage you to go into playing Classic because that’s ‘better.’ The goal is to give different options to different players, regardless of skill type. It’s going to be based on what they feel comfortable playing.”

Capcom provided me with a glimpse at Dynamic controls. This is in contrast to Classic or Modern controls. These controls are designed to balance against each other. This mode is meant to be closer to what players could consider an “easy” mode, as the game essentially decides which attack to perform on your behalf as you press face buttons. Although strategy plays an important role and you manually move the character via the dpad and perform parries, this mode allows for more button-mashers around the world.

“In a normal fighting game, when they [mash buttons], they just do a lot of whiffs,” Nakayama says. “We wanted something important and something that makes a difference happen by randomly pressing buttons.”

A character might be far from the button that causes a projectile to go off, but a button pressing it might cause a combo when they are close by. The name “Dynamic” refers to the fact that the game will perform different contextual actions based on the location and situation of the match when the buttons are pressed. Dynamic cannot be used online in fights, unlike Classic or Modern controls.

Street Fighter 6 is the easiest entry to the series with these control strategies. Perhaps the best part about the series’ gameplay is the cast of characters. Thankfully, the philosophies applied to the game’s core mechanics – the classic inspiration, the fresh approach, and the widely appealing styles – all carry over into the art and characters of Street Fighter 6.

Return of the World Warriors

The Return of the World Warriors

Capcom looked through the list of Street Fighter 6 characters and chose from both classic fighters as well as newer faces. Debuting characters like Luke, Jamie, and Kimberly, offer unique personalities and fighting styles we haven’t seen in past games. Street Fighter II heroes Ryu and Chun Li, Chun Li, Dhalsims, Blanka will be returning, with a fresh look that reflects their old stature at this point in Street Fighter’s timeline.

Maybe the most significant departure from his classic style is Ken, who serves as a central character (though not the protagonist) in Street Fighter 6’s story. As one of the two original playable characters in the series, alongside Ryu, fans have seen his complete evolution from Ryu’s rival to husband of Eliza, father of Mel, and ex-vice president of the Masters Foundation. Street Fighter 6 is the beginning of a new chapter.

“Throughout the series, it seems like his life has become more and more stable, and the team felt like he was losing a reason to fight,” Nakayama says. “But this is a way to create that reason for him to step up. That is why Ken matters and what gives Ken purpose. The story will be tied to those other characters close to him.”

While Capcom is tight-lipped about why Ken is in these extraordinary circumstances, we know he’s on the run from something. Early scenes in his Arcade Mode story show him being captured and interrogated over a terrorist bombing. Ken’s backstory will be fleshed out through a special four-issue comic series with longtime Capcom collaborator UDON Entertainment.

“This is the first time that we’re doing this kind of comic book series that’s closely tied to the story of the main game,” Nakayama says. “We’re working very closely with our partners at UDON. We’re providing the script and the storyline of what to expect before the events of Street Fighter 6. They’re going to be helping us to create the storylines. Beyond that, they’re even looking into possible spin-offs and collaborating with the scriptwriters on the team, so there may be more stuff beyond just the initial comic book series.”

Street Fighter 6’s protagonist Luke has a MMA style and a personality that appeals to a broad range of players.

Street Fighter 6’s protagonist, Luke plays an important role in the prequel comic. Luke is the original instructor of the avatar character that you create using World Tour, the action-based mode. This gives him an important place in the story.

Street Fighter 6 has many customization options that allow you to make your own character for World Tour. You travel around the globe, learning, fighting and interacting with the Street Fighter cast.

World Tour is a special experience where you can explore an area with your own avatar. This allows you to experience Street Fighter 6’s story and learn the basics of Street Fighter 6. Nakayama says that learning techniques from your favourite fighters can be rewarding. However, it will delight longtime fans who enjoy the extra lore.

World Tour is the primary vehicle for players to experience the story, but it’s not the only way, as players can dive into Arcade mode to further experience the story focused on their chosen fighter. Fighting Ground is a place where players have to compete against obstacles such as a bull that runs through the arena or any objects they can use to hit their opponent.

Battle Hub is perhaps the most important new mode for long-time players. This large open space was designed after an arena and allows players to interact online with each other using their avatars. Capcom has taken a lot of inspiration from arcade and esport scenes to design an area where players can gather and play together, as well as learn more about the game.

The biggest inspiration for Battle Hub was born from the team’s desire to be social when it was largely inadvisable to do so in real life. “Especially with COVID, there’s not many opportunities to go to arcades and socialize with your friends,” Matsumoto says. “So, we felt like, ‘What if we made an online version of an arcade? Are we able to do that within Street Fighter?’ That was a challenge we wanted to take on and recreate because we grew up in the era of going to arcades with our friends, and that’s something we have fond memories of.”

Street Fighter 6 is not your only option. You can also compete against other Street Fighter 6 players to earn high scores in classic Street Fighter II and Final Fight games at the Game Center of the Battle Hub. You can watch every match at the hub. This is an important component to the fight game genre.

On the Sidelines

The Sidelines

The Battle Hub is a play into the sentiment that permeated almost every conversation with Capcom’s development team. Capcom knows Street Fighter fans love it. That’s why it created a specific color language in its Drive System to let players know what is happening. Drive Parry uses a blue scheme while Drive Rush displays a green aura. Drive Impact splashes its screen with characters-specific colors. “We want to make it easier to tell from a player perspective, but beyond that, even if you’re not playing and you’re just kind of watching, we wanted to emphasize those points for viewers, so they know what’s happening based on what they see in the game color-wise,” art director Kaname Fujioka says.

Developer also implemented Real-time Commentary, which allows spectators to keep track of the happenings on the screen. With this new feature, players can create the perfect commentary team by choosing from established entertainment and esport voices. Two in-game commentators can be selected (or deselected) by players to provide a comparable experience to watching live streaming fighting games. It adds an esports feel to the fights, and educates both players and spectators.

“What the developers smartly did was pepper in educational lines,” esports color commentator and Street Fighter 6 in-game analyst James Chen says. “The lines are mostly spoken by the main commentators like Vicious and Tasty Steve and Aru, while my part is largely just color commentary. But it’s a nice, subtle way of teaching beginner players higher level concepts, like making sure they anti-air opponents who jump at them and such.”

In real time, the commentary responds to what is happening on the screen and even intensifies as rounds progress. Capcom worked closely to Aru, a Japanese commentator to discover the systems and to find the best way to incorporate it. This concept has a clear analog in sports games. However, Nakayama & his team took more inspiration from Esports events. They also thought about how much less skilled players would love having their matches called and interpreted by their favorite commentators. This result is potentially groundbreaking and gives more insight to the action on screen than any other. Esports are relatively young in the grand scheme of things, but Street Fighter 6 uses this convention to such a significant effect that it’s almost shocking the genre has never done it to this extent.

The Heart Of Battle Is The Key To The Solution

The Heart of Battle is the Answer

MMA is dominated by a common saying: “You either win, or you learn.” This quote was taken from Nelson Mandela’s famous quote. Street Fighter V was not the win Capcom wanted when it launched initially, but Capcom is now ready to release the next amazing entry to its fighting game series by listening to players, learning the lessons and correcting their course.

Street Fighter V’s performance was so much better than Street Fighter V, due to post-release titles and updates to content, Capcom will keep working on Street Fighter 6 until 2023. Street Fighter 6 is in an even better place than V in its launch ramp.

“This time around, we’re preparing more staff members on the development team, compared to the people who worked on the post-launch content for Street Fighter V, to prepare content for 6,” Tsuchiya says. “I can’t talk about the specifics of the post-launch content; it’s safe to say we are aiming to deliver updates in the future, sometime after the release of Street Fighter 6 to deliver more content, whether it be characters or stages and whatnot.”

Street Fighter 6 is likely to start in a better position than the popular predecessor. There are also the benefits of evolution after launch. We won’t know how Street Fighter 6 will turn out until next year when the game launches, but for now, the franchise’s future looks as bright as its past.

Original publication of this article was Issue 351 Game Informer. For more information about Street Fighter I to Street Fighter 6’s journey, please refer to the issue 351 of Game Informer.