One Year Later, How Is Street Fighter 6 Faring?

Heading into Street Fighter 6, Capcom was in a very different position from the one it had it found itself in in the lead-up to Street Fighter 5’s release. When the latter released in 2016 and was met with mixed responses and loud backlash from a significant portion of the player base, it was just another game in what had been a long line of disappointments over a prolonged period of time for the once-proud Japanese giant. Fast forward to 2023, and when Street Fighter 6 was met with widespread acclaim from critics and players alike, it was yet another notch in the belt for a resurgent company that had enjoyed several recent years of roaring critical and commercial success with a number of games year over year.

But Street Fighter 6 is, by its very nature, not a one-and-done type of game. A new fighter releasing in 2023 was obviously always going to look at its launch as not only the end of one long journey, but also the beginning of another long road. Consistent ongoing live service is implied with any major new fighter, especially a new mainline Street Fighter game- so with Street Fighter 6 approaching its one-year anniversary, how exactly has the latest entry in Capcom’s flagship fighting franchise fared. Has the game done a good job of capitalizing on its universal initial success, or has it instead fumbled and tripped over a series of mistakes? Well, as always, there’s no black or white answer here, with the truth falling somewhere in the middle, but all things considered, it’s fair to say that things have gone pretty well for Street Fighter 6 in its first post-launch year.

There have, of course, been some points of contention over the last year that the fanbase has been vocal with its displeasure about. Chief among them, perhaps, is the aggressive monetization model that Capcom has adopted with the game. For whatever reason, the fighting genre is rife with bafflingly aggressive microtransactions for in-game cosmetics, and just like other recent releases like Mortal Kombat 1 and Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6 goes a bit overboard in this area. Prices for cosmetics are ridiculously high, especially if you want outfits for the entire roster, and things are only made worse by the fact that Capcom only lets you buy the in-game currency in increments that don’t match the value of the purchases you’ll be making in the in-game store, which means you’re often likely to end up spending more than you needed to on currency.

Where microtransactions and cosmetics are concerned, Street Fighter 6 employs a number of textbook, scummy methods designed to push players into spending more of their money, which is something that the game has rightfully attracted plenty of loud criticism for. Whether or not this is something that Capcom will look to fix in the future remains to be seen, but thus far, a year into its light, it’s safe to say that Street Fighter 6’s microtransactions have been a noticeable blemish on its otherwise strong reputation.

Of course, the game does have some issues beyond its microtransactions, but none of them have necessarily been too controversial with the community. As is the case with pretty much every fighter out there, not every change or tweak that Street Fighter 6 makes with its patches and updates proves to be a popular one, while you’ll also find a not insignificant number of people who’ll tell you that the cadence of post-launch DLC releases for the game has been far slower than what would have been ideal- but all things considered, Street Fighter 6’s post-launch period has been a success in all other major ways, beyond its monetization issues.

For starters, even though the game’s cadence of post-launch updates hasn’t pleased everyone in the community, it has nonetheless added its fair share of content following its release, from cosmetics to new fighters. So far, four new fighters have been released in the form of Rashid, A.K.I., Ed, and Akuma, while the game has also had collaborations with Exoprimal, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Monster Hunter, in addition to having added multiple new sets of outfits for all of its characters, new music tracks and options, and more.

Suffice to say that post-launch support for Street Fighter 6 has, at the very least, been sufficient. Could it have been a bit more abundant with new content, especially in comparison to something like, say, Street Fighter 5? Sure, it absolutely could be. But then again, Street Fighter 6 started out in a significantly stronger position than its predecessor did, so it isn’t surprising that its post-launch efforts haven’t been as aggressive as its predecessor’s were- because, plainly put, they don’t need to be.

Which brings us to our next point- that all of this post-launch stuff is obviously built on the stellar foundations of the base game itself. 2023 was an incredible year for games and has already gone down in history as having one of the medium’s strongest ever annual lineups of all-time classics. Street Fighter 6 is, without a shadow of doubt, high in that list of games. With a Metacritic score of 92, the game is nothing short of a critical darling, while it has enjoyed plenty of acclaim from its wider player base as well. On Steam, for instance, at the time of writing, its user reviews rating on the platform over the last month is marked as Mostly Positive, with 76 percent of the reviews in that period having been positive. Its overall user reviews rating on the platform since launch, meanwhile, its Very Positive, with 86% of its 24,000-plus user reviews on Steam to date being positive.

In addition to its critical acclaim, the fighter has also been a commercial success for Capcom so far. As recently revealed by the company, as of March 31, being a handful of months shy of its one-year anniversary, Street Fighter 6 had sold 3.3 million units worldwide across all platforms, which is a solid start for the game. Capcom’s games (especially the well received ones) also tend to have incredibly long tails, so if Street Fighter 6 follows that pattern, its sales are likely going to continue to climb in the coming months and years.

Of course, that’s built on the assumption that support for Street Fighter 6 isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. Capcom recently wrapped up the game’s Year 1 DLC with its fourth addition to the roster in the form of Akuma. Earlier in the year, however, the company also confirmed that it was working on year 2 DLC, in addition to more Battle Hub events, gameplay features, and more. Unsurprisingly, then, new content for Street Fighter 6 is in development, so the question now is how long it’ll be before we know more about that in an official capacity.

The coming weeks and months will be bringing with them a series of major gaming events and showcases, including Summer Games Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, and, as per leaks, a PlayStation-focused event, so there’s a good chance that Capcom ends up picking any one of those as the stage to announce its plans for what the next year of Street Fighter 6 is going to look like. Hopefully, the company isn’t going to take its foot off the gas anytime soon, because the fighter has followed up on an excellent launch with a largely solid first post-launch year (marred by some issues, chief among them being the aggressive microtransactions). Hopefully, Capcom will follow up on that with a second year that is, at the very least, just is as good, if not better.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.