It’s been many years since the launch of Street Fighter 5, and we’re now at the point where series fans are itching for a completely new entry to dive into. Luckily enough, one is right around the corner. Street Fighter 6 has generated a massive amount of excitement with each passing day pretty much since it was announced, made more intense by how impressive the game has looked in all that Capcom has shown of it so far. Heading into its release not long from now, we know quite a bit about what to expect from the game, and here, we’re going to go over a few of those key details.
WORLD TOUR
It’s rare to see a fighting game trying something new and ambitious with its story mode, but Street Fighter 6 has big ambitions on that front. Its single player story mode, World Tour, is described as an immersive story-driven experience, and it’s going to be much more than just a collection of fights and cutscenes, which is what you’d ordinarily expect from the genre. World Tour will instead see players traveling to a number of different locations that will be fully explore 3D environments, while each of these semi-open world areas will also come with plenty of side content. There will still be plenty of fights to get into, of course, but according to Capcom, World Tour is going to be about a much more fleshed-out experience in other ways as well.
MORE WORLD TOUR DETAILS
The main drive of World Tour will be to travel the world (as its name suggests) to seek out fighting masters and learn new moves and techniques from them on your path to becoming increasingly stronger, but the mode will have plenty of ancillary mechanics and features as well, like learning new moves that you can use outside of fights to get to previously inaccessible areas, or leveling up and earning skill points to upgrade your characters. Players will also be able to purchase items from vendors, customize their moveset, purchase gear, strengthen bonds with various characters, play minigames, and more.
CHARACTER CREATION
Who exactly will you be playing as in World Tour though? You’ll be playing as your own custom created character, with familiar series characters appearing as the many masters that you’ll be meeting throughout your journey. Capcom has stressed on a number of occasions that the character creation toolset will provide a vast amount of options and ways for players to tinker what their character will look like, while with gear, skill trees, and new fighting moves, you’ll also have plenty of control over their progression and what kind of a fighter they turn into.
BATTLE HUB
As big of a highlight as World Tour is seemingly going to be, many would argue that the long-term life of any fighting game depends primarily on its multiplayer offerings. Street Fighter 6 seems to be going all-out on that front as well. The Battle Hub is essentially the game’s social hub, not only for all things casual and ranked multiplayer matches, but beyond that as well. A Battle Hub will host up to 100 players at a time, and here, you’ll be able to freely walk around the space with your avatar, communicate with other players via chat or emotes, customize the look of your avatar, and even play a number of Capcom’s classic arcade games.
AVATAR BATTLES
The Battle Hub is also home to Avatar Battles- which is exactly what it sounds like. Players will be able to take their avatars into battle with each other and duke it out. All of your cosmetics will, of course, be on full display during fights, while you’ll also be able to take your fully customized movesets as well. That means you’ll be able to mix and match any of moves and attacks you’ve learned in World Tour.
FIGHTING GROUND
Street Fighter 6’s third pillar alongside World Tour and Battle Hub, Fighting Ground is a mode that all longtime series fans and genre purists will get plenty of use out of. Essentially, all the traditional Street Fighter stuff outside of the game’s new modes will be found here. That includes versus battles, extreme battle, training, casual and ranked online matches, and the like.
DRIVE GAUGE
The Drive system will be the backbone of Street Fighter 6’s core fighting gameplay, and will encompass five special moves. There’s the Drive Parry, which will automatically parry an incoming attack; Overdrive, which are essentially EX moves; Drive Impact, which will act as a shield and let you absorb an incoming attack; Drive Rush, which will allow you to cover distances; and Drive Reversal, which is a counterattack. Each of these moves will eat up varying amounts of your Drive gauge, so even though it will gradually refill overtime, managing it will be a crucial component of fights. An empty Drive gauge will see you enter Burnout, which will leave you temporarily vulnerable.
SUPER COMBOS
Street Fighter 6 also sees the return of super combos, though Capcom has tweaked how they will function a bit. In a nutshell, every character will have three super combos, and each of them will be tied exclusively to their levels, with Level 3 obviously being the most powerful. That means you’ll only be able to use Ryu’s Shin Shoryuken, for instance, at Level 3- though if your character enters a critical state, they’ll be able to use a more powerful version of their Level 3 super combo.
CONTROL SCHEMES
With Capcom hoping to open up its long-running fighting franchise to a wider audience than it ever has before, it has also included multiple different control schemes in Street Fighter 6 to cater to players of varying skill levels and play styles. The first of these is the Classic control scheme, which is the standard six button layout that Street Fighter players will be very familiar with. Then there’s the Modern scheme, which is meant for those looking to enjoy the game without having to memorize its combos, and essentially simplifies inputs for special attacks to basic button combos. Finally, there’s the Dynamic scheme, which is meant for quick, casual play. It’s effectively built around single button presses, with an auto-attack button that will automatically perform different attacks and combos based on your and your opponent’s position. The Dynamic control scheme will only be available in certain modes in Fighting Ground, and not in online matches.
REAL TIME COMMENTARY
Capcom has made it abundantly clear a number of times that Street Fighter 6 has very much been designed with esports in mind, and its implementation of real time commentary is perfect evidence of that. Effectively meant to emulate the commentary of an esports match, this feature sees known English and Japanese personalities in the fighting game community providing both play by play and colour commentary of the on-screen action, while also providing explanations of gameplay mechanics and systems for newcomers. The game will feature eight real time commentators in total.
MULTIPLAYER DETAILS
A couple of other crucial multiplayer details have also been confirmed for Street Fighter 6. Capcom has confirmed that the game will feature support for rollback netcode and cross-platform multiplayer. Of course, any fighting game releasing in 2023 is expected to have both those features, especially one as massive as Street Fighter 6, but hey, it’s nice to have confirmation.
LAUNCH ROSTER
Street Fighter 6 will launch with a roster of 18 characters, and it’ll feature a healthy mix of familiar faces and newcomers. There are six new introductions- expert dancer and Chinatown peacekeeper Jamie, globetrotting and nature-loving Lily, international NGO head JP, college graduate and aspiring ninja Kimberly, super model and world champion judok Manon, and Marisa, an up-and-coming jewelry designer who’s supposedly descended from Greek warriors. Meanwhile, older series characters who’ll be returning are Ryu, Ken, Luke, Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, Blanka, Juri, E. Honda, Dee Jay, Zangief, and Cammy.
YEAR 1 DLC
Capcom has also revealed plans for Street Fighter 6’s Year 1 DLC, and has confirmed it will add four additional characters to its roster between Autumn 2023 and Fall 2024. The first will be A.K.I., a new character who will be added in Autumn. She will be followed by three DLC additions that series fans will be familiar with, with Rashid arriving this Summer, Ed this Winter, and Akuma in Fall 2024.
PC REQUIREMENTS
If you’re planning on playing on Street Fighter 6, what kind of a rig are you going to need? Thankfully, the requirements aren’t terribly demanding, at least on the lower specs. On minimum settings, you’ll need either an Intel Core i5-7500 or an AMD Ryzen 3 1200, along with either a GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB VRAM or a Radeon RX 580 with 4 GB VRAM, and 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either an Intel Core i7 8700 or an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, along with either a GeForce RTX 2070 or a Radeon RX 5700 XT, and 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need roughly 60 GB of free storage space.
DEMO
Street Fighter 6’s June 2 launch is not too far away, but as it does with pretty much all of its games, Capcom has released a demo for the title as well. It features training with Ryu and Luke in Fighting Ground, the beginning of the World Tour mode, and its full avatar creation toolset. Additionally, you can also take the avatar that you create in the demo into the full game when it launches.