At this point in time, developing a fighting game that doesn’t take the ever-growing esports side of gaming into account isn’t something that a lot of studios think is wise, and sure enough, as one of the biggest upcoming games in the genre, Street Fighter 6 is putting quite a bit of emphasis on esports as well. In fact, according to Capcom, it’s doing much more than that.
Speaking in a recent interview with Famitsu (via Exputer), Capcom president and representative director Haruhiro Tsujimoto revealed that from the very beginning, Street Fighter 6’s development team made esports a crucial aspect of the experience and developed the game around it, which wasn’t really the case with the development of past titles in the series.
“Capcom is also focusing on esports, but when I first worked on Street Fighter 4, such a culture had not yet taken root in Japan, and JeSU (Japan eSports Union) was finally launched while Street Fighter 5 was being developed,” he said. “Street Fighter 6 was developed from the beginning with the development of e-sports in mind, so I expect it to be very exciting.”
From the implementation of real-time commentary to the vast array of competitive options that it’s providing, it has been pretty clear right from the off that Street Fighter 6 is going to be focusing on esports quite a bit. How the community receives the game on that front should be interesting to see.
Street Fighter 6 is out on June 2 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PC. A demo of the game is currently available on all platforms.
