Fighting Games Friday: A Lil’ World Tour

The new Street Fighter 6 stream needed to be aimed towards the more casual audience, the group Capcom will need to buy the game by the bulk to ensure its success. There have been enough presentations for the dedicated fighting game audience by this point, for those who pay attention to all the character reveals and watch the tournaments they tend to be shown at, if they don’t participate in the tournaments themselves. The fact that Lil’ Wayne, of all people, was hosting this stream further clarified the audience Capcom wanted to watch this, even though he only appeared on camera for about two minutes — a lil’ bit of time, perhaps.

(I hate using the word “casual” because it sounds so patronizing compared to discussions about the “hardcore” audience, but I’m using it for simplicity’s sake and not to be an elitist gatekeeper.)

One of the biggest attractions for the larger audience will be the World Tour mode. The more casual audience likes the main fighting modes and tends to partake in occasional online matches before the competition gets too stiff over time; but story modes are equally as important for them, as several fighting game publishers have learned over the years. It’s why nearly this entire stream was dedicated towards showcasing it. The mode was already established to be robust, but the plan was to show just how robust it will be.

The World Tour mode will involve players strolling around virtual iterations of cities that represent countries around the world with a created avatar. Metro City, a staple of the Final Fight series (which takes place in the same universe as Street Fighter), is one of them, and newly-established country Nayshall is another. The character creator is one of the most robust seen in a fighting game, easily dwarfing the Soulcalibur titles. The story-related itinerary will involve strolling around the city and learning techniques from the main characters as the avatar increases their bonds with them through a variety of options.

The mode, like every AAA action-adventure these days, has RPG elements where the avatar can level up through defeating random opponents that literally run into them on the street with customized move sets, or completing other missions that can involve, well, fighting a refrigerator. The avatar can eat to replenish their health, and buy a host of outfits to further customize their appearance through purchasing apparel and modifying their designs through in-game currency. There’s even an arcade-like hub in which classic Capcom games like Street Fighter II and, of course, Final Fight are playable.

You might have realized something if you’re as enlightened as yours truly: The description and exploration look and sound a lot like a Yakuza game wrapped in an aesthetic that brings (the now-late?) Saints Row to mind. It looks and feels cool, and hopefully Capcom is serious about their intention to provide plenty of updates for it over the next several years.

The mode will even include characters who haven’t been playable in any Street Fighter game, like Damnd and Carlos Miyamoto from the Final Fight games. It would be nice, rudimentary even, if they were made playable in the main game. There startlingly aren’t any Final Fight characters among the currently-announced playable roster, though new character Kimberly uses the Bushin-ryu style like Guy, Maki, and Zeku. I’m confident that at least one will inevitably arrive.

The moves taught by the characters can be equipped to the avatar. It’s possible to make one whose move set is, say, a mishmash of the move sets from Luke, Chun-Li, and Marisa. There is no way they can be used online, outside potential casual matches with friends, because of the hilariously broken combinations that can be made. I’m of the opinion that they should be allowed in select online matches thanks to the sheer nonsense that would be unleashed.

An offline demo was released after the presentation that includes a preview of the World Tour mode and lets players try out Ryu and Luke. It’s reminiscent of a PSOne or PlayStation 2-era demo through only providing a small taste of what’s in store for the main game, with save data that won’t carry over to the main game. But it’s a nice gesture, even if the World Tour mode’s performance on PS4 systems is a little messy during exploration. It’s now available for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, and will hit Xbox Series platforms and Steam on April 26th. Timed-exclusive demos are still a thing.

The stream itself may not have been aimed towards the dedicated fighting game audience, but Capcom knew they’d watch this anyway. Hence the confirmation of the four characters who will arrive as part of the first season: Rashid (summer 2023), A.K.I. (fall 2023), Ed (winter 2024), and Akuma (spring 2024). As in, precisely the characters whose existences were revealed through character artwork leaks shortly after the game was revealed. SF6 will also have modes familiar to many other fighting games, including an Arcade Mode with endings for each character (which won’t have to be patched in later this time), offline Versus Mode, Team Battle, and the Extreme Battle mode with a host of ostensibly nonsensical mode.

This stream fully confirmed that SF6 will be around for years, in case that wasn’t already clear. In addition to more characters and stages, Capcom plans to release more content for the World Tour mode in the future. This game will be around for several years. If a player’s favorite character isn’t there yet or the World Tour mode doesn’t lean into the Yakuza game feel as expected, know that there’s a chance for modifications. But “chance” must remain emphasized.