When Street Fighter 6 was announced at the end of a special countdown timer back in February, Capcom revealed that there would be more news to share over the upcoming summer. Fast-forward to last week’s State of Play event and this week’s Summer Games Fest showcase and we now know a lot more details about the seventh mainline installment in this popular fighting game franchise.
During Yesterday’s Summer Games Fest Play Days event, I had an opportunity to briefly spend some hands-on time with the highly anticipated sequel. While the demo only covered the core/classic Fighting Ground experience, I walked away largely impressed and feel confident in saying that this game will kick major ass when it drops next year. Here are more details on what to expect and some of my first impressions of the title so far.
A New Challenger Has Arrived
Not much is known about the Street Fighter 6 storyline right now other than the fact that it supposedly takes place chronologically after the events of Street Fighter III. For this reason, the older generation of classic characters like Ryu, Chun-Li, and Guile return to confront the next generation of fighters headlined by Luke Sullivan, a DLC character introduced in Street Fighter V.
Capcom is promoting this sequel as a redefined fighting game experience, an idea reinforced by the addition of new game modes known as Fighting Ground, World Tour, and Battle Hub. In addition to these modes, fans can also expect in-game commentary from popular FGC personalities, a new optional control scheme for executing special moves easier, and a new system called the Drive Gauge for performing five different techniques in order to enhance offensive and defensive maneuvers.
New School vs Old School
As I mentioned above, the demo only consisted of the Fighting ground experience across three respective matchups and two selectable stages. The four playable fighters to choose from were Ryu, Chun-Li, Luke, and Jaime. It’s worth noting right away just how seamless and smooth the beautifully designed gameplay animations were throughout the entirety of every fight. The RE engine that was last used in Resident Evil Village plays a major role in this and really provides an immersive atmosphere that really sucks players deeper into the action. There were absolutely no stuttering or connection issues regardless of how fast-paced each encounter got.
Furthermore, The Drive Gauge is an absolute gamechanger as it allows you to get more creative with your techniques by encompassing mechanics from previous entries in the series. After choosing one of five techniques, there are options to use either the classic six button control scheme or the modern control scheme where pressing single buttons lets you do special moves. I noticed this feature even more while playing as drunken kung fu breakdancer Jamie as there is a great amount of range to his fighting abilities. Every battle is more tense and calculated yet intuitive enough for even someone who is new to the series to pickup, play and enjoy right out of the gates.
The only personal criticism that I have about the demo is that we didn’t get an opportunity to play as Guile or Kimberly. Seeing how both of these characters have already been revealed, it would have been cool to check them out in action and fully dive into their newer moves and specials. Capcom does have a plan already in motion to reveal more characters over a period of time and I’m certain that there will be future hands-on opportunities before the game finally launches next year.
Likewise, we also need to see their full vision for both the World Tour and Battle Hub modes. If those modes are just as exhilarating as the core Fighting Ground experience was, then we may be looking at the newly crowned king of fighting games.
Street Fighter 6 launches in 2023 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, and PlayStation 4. Are any of you looking forward to playing the game next year? Please feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
