Fighting Games Friday: The Forever World Warriors

The last two Street Fighter games have made it clear that the franchise’s most identifiable characters from the time it first achieved popularity (Street Fighter II) will be with the brand for however long Capcom continues to make new installments. This is understandable. The company tried to somewhat reboot the brand with the Street Fighter III titles, an evidently unprofitable venture, with the final game in that sub-series only becoming a cult classic years after release. Familiarity is important for many games, but especially fighting games. There’s a reason why the genre has seen very few new franchises in the last several years, and a lack of serious roster shuffling in new installments that release.

The additions of Ken, Blanka, Dhalsim, and E. Honda to Street Fighter 6 is no surprise considering the aforementioned importance of familiarity — though the roster leaking shortly after the reveal helped here, too. Companies that develop and publish fighting games are leakier than most others, thanks to people who either have friends who work within these companies, data accidently being left in the codes of beta test versions, or websites with clumsy codes. But I’ve never seen anything on par with what occurred with this game, where entire pages of concept art leaked showing every character, and even videos showing Ken and Cammy in action.

The explanation for Ken’s outfit? It turns out he’s been framed for orchestrating a criminal plot, and has been forced to go into hiding. It’s not that Ken and Eliza had a bad break-up, with her taking the kids, though they’re clearly separated out of necessity here. Ken retains the trademark techniques he’s had since his first SF appearance, with a new Jinrai Kick that can be followed up with three different attacks. His Dragonlash Kick and Sprint also return from Street Fighter V, but as special moves rather than V-Skills. Blanka will return with his traditional attacks, but will also come with a move involving chucking Blanka-chan Bomb dolls at opponents, which can dash after being hit with Blanka’s electric. This is… exactly the kind of new technique Blanka needed.

Dhalsim returns rocking a cool beard, with a Yoga Fire attack that can be shot diagonally again. The developers have given Dhalsim more variety as part of his basic special move repertoire here, with the Yoga Arch that travels in a similar diagonal fashion to the special one he used in SFV, and a Yoga Comet that fires diagonally from the air. They’re also bringing back familiarity by him being able to use the Yoga Flame again. E. Honda, meanwhile, will retain all of his old moves alongside two special attacks, the Neko Damashi and Sumo Spirit, that were previously V-Skills. He also has a new move, the Sumo Dash, a dash that can be used for pressure and closing the distance.

With the secrets being out months ago, the developers revealed the entire initial roster through posting the World Tour opening movie. Of them, Cammy, Dee Jay, and Zangief are the returning characters yet to be fully revealed, along with new characters Manon, Marisa, Lily, and JP. This means other characters who were leaked, including Ed, Rashid, Akuma, and A.K.I., will be downloadable characters. It’s a respectable starting roster by one-on-one fighting game launch standards, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

The World Tour mode was given heavy focus as part of the Tokyo Game Show showcase, with the new trailer confirming just how robust and feature-rich it will be. It’s a product for an audience that likes to have more single-player content to enjoy alongside the traditional fighting action.

The mode will allow for players to explore Metro City, which will have more features and options for play than even earlier trailers suggested. There’s a character creator for players to customize avatars to their liking, including clothing options. The avatar can be customized with move sets from other characters upon visiting faces like Ryu and Chun-Li around the city as part of the story, though it’s too early to tell whether it will allow for broken combinations. Players can mingle with each other in the Battle Hub to play online matches and other games included, like the original Final Fight’s arcade version, a game about fighting in Metro City being played in an arcade in Metro City. Hopefully this won’t have too many steps to prolong the amount of time it takes to get into the matches themselves like Guilty Gear Strive, an issue that Arc System Works refuses to alter.

There’s another fighting game option known as Extreme Battle, in which the individual matches will have gimmicks. Matches can have comparatively normal winning stipulations, like one player getting five knockdowns. But there are more, well, extreme options like having occasional charging bulls entering the arena, and even one for the appearance of Met from Mega Man with occasional electric attacks. (Dr. Light is also on the in-game money. They have to use those characters somewhere.) It’s unlikely this mode will be used for serious tournaments, but I could see smaller tournaments having a good time with it. But it will be a riot with friends and family.

It’s clear that Capcom wants to cater to a more significant base of players than those who played prior SF games from all the features they’re stuffing into SF6. It could work out for them provided the game avoids the missteps of SFV in its early days. A closed beta will be held for the game on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam (and not PlayStation 4) from October 7th to the 10th. It will serve as the first good way for players to get a feel for the game outside press events. The game is due for release at a still-unknown time in 2023, but I can see it arriving early in the year.