Fighting Game Friday: Hey, Maybe Capcom DOES Care About Street Fighter V’s Online

I blogged about the unfortunate state of netplay in recent fighting games in a previous Fighting Game Friday post, an issue that developers should be on top of in 2020 — especially Japanese developers. There’s enough evidence suggesting that games with good online play keep their communities around for years longer than those that don’t, which would be lovely for some of the better titles from the east. Capcom’s Street Fighter V is one of the more frustrating examples despite also being among the better ones, because the team was so close to getting it. The game uses rollback netplay, but its poor implementation leads to inconsistent connections with opponents during matches. It’s also a shame that they haven’t even tried to fix it in the nearly four years it’s been on the market.

This got even worse when a Redditor name Altimor fixed it within a couple of hours on PC, and claimed he would have been finished faster if he had a dedicated team with more resources like Capcom does. (Another Redditor has since provided their own fix.) It was tough to see this and not think that Capcom just doesn’t care about actually fixing the online play, considering how easy this was and the complaints that have been around since just after the game released in 2016.

Maybe Capcom intends to prove skeptics like me wrong in the near future, because producer Yoshinori Ono tweeted on the eve of today’s Street Fighter V: Champion Edition release that the team now plans to update the online. He followed this up by thanking fans for their positive comments, and clarified that the update will come next week after necessary server maintenance. Ono previously responded via tweet about the online play when the fan mod was released, but this was the first time he said the team was definitively planning to do something about it.

But exactly what do they plan to do? This could mean anything. Maybe they’re working with Altimor or using his work as a base (with proper credit, hopefully) to officially implement the fix, by far the ideal solution. Yet, something about that feels too good to be true. Chalk that up to just how long the player base has been waiting for some kind of solution, to the point that most of them had given up on Capcom even acknowledging it, let alone doing something about it.

Capcom has the chance to seriously impress the fanbase by making this “Champion Edition” live up to its name. In other words, hopefully this fix will be what existing fans are hoping for, and that they won’t do something insipid like add the old delay-based netcode from the Street Fighter IV games. I hope I didn’t jinx it.

There were other pieces of news in the fighting game world this week outside the above stuff and the announcement of Dragon Ball FighterZ’s next season, though it wasn’t positive.

Taiwanese developer FK Digital, responsible for the Chaos Code series, announced that the development of their new titles will be halted at the end of March. This includes Chaos Code: Next Episode of Xtreme Tempest, which has been cancelled. Series producer Mickey Lin clarified in a message that while money and resources were always issues for the company, he can’t continue development of their current titles partly thanks to his current mental condition. Mikey also co-created Chaos Code with his brother Michael Lin, who was series director until his death in December 2017, a fact he revealed to his fellow developers and the public at this moment. He also said he lost the support of his family members, another reason why he can’t continue.

This news comes as a shock, considering a new trailer for Chaos Code: Next Episode of Xtreme Tempest was just shown at Evo Japan 2020 not even three weeks ago. It’s so sudden, in fact, that it feels like we’re missing some important facts here, though it’s not worthwhile to speculate on this any further. Hopefully Mickey Lin’s condition improves, and that the development team can find jobs elsewhere quickly.

Arcana Heart and Aquapazza developer Examu confirmed that they will cease operations at the end of the month due to a lack of business. But this isn’t entirely bad news; Team Arcana will still exist, and will continue to work on the same projects. This includes the crowdfunded Arcana Heart 3: Love Max Six Stars, content for which just released yesterday. Arc System Works will likely continue handling publishing duties for the Arcana Heart games, while Team Arcana should still be capable of working on games for other publishers, like Million Arthur: Arcana Blood for Square Enix. This wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Fighting game news this week was the definition of a figurative mixed bag, but we’ll find out if SFV’s updated online play will qualify as good news within around a week. The game’s community could use it at this point.