Street Fighter VI introduces much-needed accessibility, diversity, and a touch of contemporary social values to a franchise that has largely remained unaltered since the 1980s.
Singleplayer.
PvP Multiplayer.
While the way female characters are portrayed in Street Fighter VI feels archaic compared to the rest of the world, for the fighting game genre, the fact Cammy has put away her thong leotard and Chun Li wears something other than sheer stockings on her legendary legs is a huge step forward for female representation in the fighting genre.
While both Cammy and Chun Li have access to their classic outfits, it’s good that the developers have given two of the most iconic female characters in the Street Fighter franchise room to mature, with both Cammy and Chun Li seeming to have settled into their new lives as a secret agent who bares their midriff and wears dangerously tight pants (Cammy) and a karate instructor (Chun-Li) who has taken it upon herself to be a mother to the orphaned Li-Fen.
Small strides in female representation aside, almost every returning character has matured since we last saw them, and getting to interact with them throughout the sizable 25+ hour single-player mode is a real treat for fans of the franchise.
Though I must admit to being taken off guard when Chun-Li asked me what I thought of her legs, I was forced to choose between saying, “They are thick” or “They are inspirational.”
Awkward conversations with legendary characters aside, Street Fighter VI launches with an impressive roster of characters, both old and new, with eight returning world warriors (Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu etc.), four returning franchise favourites (Cammy, Luke, Dee Jay, & Juri), and finally six new characters including the imposing gladiatrix Marisa who comes in at a whopping 6’8″ (203 cm) and Christopher Lee-esque JP.
In addition to this legendary cast of characters, Capcom has revealed four additional fighters who will be joining the fight as part of Street Fighter VI’s Year One Season Pass, including returning fighters Rashid (Street Fighter V), ED (Street Fighter IV), and Akuma (Super Street Fighter II Turbo), as well as mysterious newcomer A.K.I., who Capcom has revealed little about beyond that she has claws and hails from China.
Finally, for those who are keeping count, Street Fighter VI launches with seven female fighters and seven non-white fighters, including Kimberly, who has the sad honour of being the first playable female African American character in the franchise’s 35+ year history, better late than never I suppose.
While Kimberly is about 30 years overdue, I must admit the developers did a great job with her, and the fact they consulted with black employees and external diversity consultants is evident by just how “authentically black” Kimberly is, without resorting to frequently racist stereotypes, as with what happened with Sean (Street Fighter III), a character whose cowardly and uncoordinated antics look like something ripped right from the pages of a KKK recruitment poster, and in no way reflected what an authentic black character should look like in such an iconic franchise as Street Fighter.
Curiously, Sean would undergo a race change with Street Fighter V to become a Brazilian Street Fighter which served as little more than comic relief to his older sister, who was portrayed as a much braver and more competent fighter.
I must clarify I do not believe that Capcom made Sean to be offensive to African Americans; however, the way he was portrayed in multiple titles as a cowardly, uncoordinated loser is offensive, and I would love to see his character redeemed in Street Fighter VI while reclaiming his African heritage, something which is very doable considering the sizable Afro-Brazilian population, with roughly 50% of Brazilians’ having African heritage as of the 2010 census.
While no one doubted that Street Fighter VI would do well, the fact that all platforms are now equally active due to robust cross-play support ensures that Street Fighter VI will remain active on all platforms for the duration of its lifespan (which is likely to be at least the remainder of the 9th console generation), ensuring that players have a reason to keep playing and that capcom has the motivation to continue releasing both paid and free updates for their legendary fighting franchise.
While the introduction of a modern control scheme has proven controversial with some 30+ year veterans, for the rest of us, it’s great that players who do not have the best part of four decades to invest in learning their character, so they can join the Street Fighter community and compete at a meaningful level.
In addition, the modern control scheme is much more accessible for those with physical disabilities, opening up one of the most iconic franchises in gaming to over 400 million new players worldwide, further proving that gaming is for everyone.
The classic control scheme still exists for those who prefer greater control over their character’s actions. It is better than ever due to the fluid combat and low latency that comes with 9th (and, to a lesser extent, 8th) generation consoles.
While fighting games are not known for their meaningful single-player content and engaging narrative, Street Fighter VI’s attempt at creating a semi-open world fighting-themed roleplaying game has worked well. While it’s not in the same league as Diablo IV, I enjoyed my time with Street Fighter VI’s world tour mode equally as much, for very different reasons.
While Diablo IV offers players a glimpse into a dark and mysterious world full of hellish fantasy creatures and an in-depth progression system that requires planning to fully take advantage of, Street Fighter VI offers players a ludicrous narrative about finding out “What is the meaning of Strength?”, that is surprisingly easy to pick up and considering the genre incredibly has some fairly deep RPG mechanics, including stats, buffs, temporary items, and a huge variety of skills which can be mixed and matched to give your fighter a unique fighting style.
I personally enjoy mixing Luke and Chun-Li’s abilities, but I would not say no to the occasional Cammy-esque attack when dealing with agile opponents.
RPG mechanics aside, World Tour’s character creator allows players to create a unique avatar to explore the single-player mode and battle hub, allowing players of all walks of life to be able to play as a character that they can identify with, something which has allowed players to create some truly unique characters (and by unique I mean hellish abomination’s), that would otherwise be impossible with a traditional character creator.
Finally, for the fashion-conscious aside, World Tour mode allows players to further personalize their avatar with a massive selection of clothing from stylish evening wear to booty shorts and *checks notes* a Blanka-Chan costume, allowing players to explore both the single-player World Tour mode and the multiplayer Battle Hub, as a large green mascot like creature in denim dungarees.
Street Fighter VI introduces a new social hub mechanic (battle hub) that allows players to chat, make friends, join clubs, play retro Capcom Titles such as Final Fight (1989) and Street Fighter (1987), engage in 1 v1 Street Fighter battles and most interestingly engage in avatar battles, which allows players to battle it out as their character from the World Tour mode, that has access to all abilities that they have unlocked by playing World Tour, allowing for the creation of some truly unique builds, that ensure that every encounter has the potential to memorable.
While I am a supporter of Battle Passes when done correctly and feel that a 60-90 day battle pass is entirely doable for most players, including those with limited time to play, the fighting pass system in Street Fighter VI is almost entirely broken, with players have very few ways to progress beyond playing battle hub matches, with all other modes suffering from massive progression debuffs.
This problem is made all the worse because there are very few unique challenges. Except for Battle Hub mode, fans of other modes have just one weekly challenge for 100 kudos (out of the 9500 needed to complete a pass) and unlike most titles which see battle passes lasting for between 60–90 days, Street Fighter VI fighting passes often last just over two weeks, requiring players to purchase multiple passes within a single calendar month, in addition to premium currency if they hope to complete the pass in a timely manner if they enjoy playing any other mode than traditional one v 1 Street Fighter battles via battle hub.
Progress problems aside, fighting passes are very light on meaningful content and, ironically, mostly offer cosmetic items for the avatars made in world tour mode, despite requiring players to spend the vast majority of their time ignoring that mode if they have any hope of completing the fighting pass in a timely manner.
For some unknown reason, Street Fighter VI has received a PEGI 12+ rating despite having more partial nudity and sexualized content than many PEGI 16+ and even PEGI 18 games, with characters such as Juri wearing essentially an open-from-the-waist shirt. Cammy’s unlockable outfit is little more than a thong leotard, which, combined with the characters’ already sexualized finishing moves and outros, makes Street Fighter VI a fair bit raunchier than many games with a much higher rating.
What is even more curious about the rating is that several platforms (PSN included) originally listed Street Fighter VI as PEGI 16+ despite the official age rating being much lower (PEGI 12+), indicating that at one time, Street Fighter VI was intended to be rated for a 16+ audience.
While some may dismiss the way that female characters dress and act as innocent, it is important to acknowledge they were designed this way to be seductive as “sex sells”, and while from a purely natural point of view, that is a valid point, as always there is a greater issue to consider.
While I feel no “lust” looking at pixels on a screen, some might, and I suggest giving Street Fighter IV a miss for those people.
As the first fighting game from a major franchise to release in the 9th console generation, Street Fighter VI has the edge over longtime rivals Mortal Kombat and Tekken, which, if Capcom acts carefully, could ensure that Street Fighter VI finally overtakes Tekken in overall franchise sales.
That being said, no matter how well Street Fighter VI performs, it is unlikely that the Street Fighter franchise will overtake the likes of Super Smash Bros and Mortal Kombat, which contend for first place while maintaining a 20+ million sale lead over third place, anytime soon.
Street Fighter 6 is a action video game developed and published by Capcom, it was released on 2 June 2023 and retails for $59.99+.
Street Fighter 6 is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
If Street Fighter VI continues to sell well (and there is no reason it would not), it will quickly overtake Street Fighter V (7.2M) to become the best-selling title in the franchises 35 year+ history.
On average Street Fighter VI takes between 25 and 100 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
Street Fighter VI supports:
Street Fighter VI offers the following matchmaking options:
The Street Fighter VI in-game store sells:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Street Fighter VI is rated PEGI 12+ and contains:
Street Fighter VI is an excellent title, and certainly will remain one of the best if not the best fighting games of the 9th console generation.
While it feels a few decades behind in female representation and objectification, as far as fighting games go, Street Fighter VI is as close to “woke” as you could expect from a game in the fighting genre, where most developers have not yet discovered that female characters can kickbutt and wear clothes at the same time.
