New tidbits despite ‘radio darkness’
It seems that Capcom can’t stop showing us Street Fighter 6. The studio has been feeding the community a steady stream of tidbits ever since its official gameplay reveal during last week’s Sony State of Play presentation. With the spirit of a parent holding their newborn baby, Capcom has excitedly rolled out character reveals, music videos, test sessions, and a wide variety of minor details and elements.
Despite blatantly stating this past weekend that the developer would be going “dark” on the title, Capcom simply cannot help itself, offering up new clips and information pertaining to everyone’s favorite Family Man, Guile — first revealed during Thursday’s Summer Game Fest. We were treated to the news that Guile’s iconic Sonic Boom now features a “perfect timing” bonus on its charge, increasing damage and speed if the player executes the projectile with frame-perfect precision.
Guile's legendary Sonic Boom has additional properties in #StreetFighter6. There are now two kinds of them! When inputted with perfect timing, Guile's signature move becomes even more BOOM-tastic! pic.twitter.com/U3zLWM12eF
— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) June 14, 2022
Perhaps even more exciting, (or not, depending on your thoughts on the mechanic), a recent Japanese live stream appears to show the military hero sporting actual “battle damage”, suggesting that Street Fighter 6 will see its characters receiving shiners over the course of a fight. Admittedly, this seems a tad harsh in the modern Street Fighter universe (Yes! yes! b..buT AckSHuALlY, Street Fighter II already had wounded post-fight portraits! Yeah, I fucking know, I’m 41). Still, it’s another example of Capcom going above and beyond to make “the little things” matter — a theme that seems to permeate SF6.
When you combine the official and the unofficial details we’ve been offered on SF6 to date, we have been shown a helluva lot… Don’t forget that launch day is still at least six-plus months out. But this extended drip-feed — from Vs. portraits and perfectly timed Sonic Booms, to greyed out Team Battles and supposed battle damage — Capcom is doing a pretty terrible job at “going dark” on Street Fighter 6. Not that myself or any other members of the community are complaining, of course.
Street Fighter V, while a great fighter, had a famously horrendous launch, laden with atrocious online capabilities, slim single-player content, two forms of in-game currency, invasive PC-raiding kernel access, and bewilderingly dull U.I. elements. Perhaps Capcom, aware of the major losses made during the game’s all-important launch year, is determined to demonstrate to its audience that it has learned from said mistakes, and is determined to deliver a solid Street Fighter entry Day One, and not Year Three.
While I’m incredibly excited for SF6, (as defined by the thousands of words I’ve written in just this past fortnight), the cruciality of the hype lies in the delivery. We can obviously expect DLC and season passes, but we don’t know how in-game purchases work, we don’t know what is free vs. what is paid for, and, most importantly, we don’t know if Capcom will dally with Street Fighter 6 NFTs — which would be, without a shadow of a doubt, the ultimate hype killer.
Still, this is just cautiousness on my part. Educated cautiousness, given the general state of the modern games industry. No one can deny that Capcom has been on a roll in recent years, and is obviously seeking to redeem the Street Fighter brand in the eyes of the mainstream with an entry for the ages. The studio is doing a great job in achieving these goals, it just needs to hold the line. You can build up a world of hype in just a single year, but you can bring it all tumbling down with a single, terrible idea.
Stay the course.
Street Fighter 6 launches in 2023 on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox platforms.
