Having spoken to several veterans, the common consensus is that fighting games are in a better spot now than they have been in a long time. The release of several noteworthy titles over the past year has meant that the fighting game scene has seen a renewed interest by many, with millions upon millions of players picking up the latest entry in TEKKEN, Mortal Kombat, and this piece’s focus Street Fighter.
Street Fighter 6 was released to critical acclaim in June 2023 after nearly a year of trailers and promotion and marked a brand new beginning for the storied franchise, while remaining true to the foundations that have been built upon thus far. New characters, bombastic presentation and slick gameplay all come together to create an experience that feels as cool to watch as it brings to play, restoring the classic spirit of the arcade. Despite this, fighting games are a notoriously difficult genre to become skilled in. Even as someone who has been playing games for over half of their life, the task of becoming skilled at even one game is a sport in of itself that -- while intensely rewarding -- is based on putting the time in and really pushing yourself to do better. Street Fighter 6 is a game that truly welcomes these new players into the fold and offers a myriad of options to get you uptown scratch in a fulfilling and rewarding way. Modern control schemes ditch the classic arcade layout in favour of a more immediately intuitive way of playing that will be easier to pick up and play, without punishing you for doing so. Instead of labelling this new control scheme as "assisted", it's labelled as "modern"! This small but noteworthy use of language helps to say to new players that this is the way to begin your journey up the ladder.
Comprehensive and approachable tutorials give players the ability to jump into playing as a character without having to scour YouTube for the correct guide for them and again lower the barrier to entry while still maintain- ing the in- credibly high heights of the fighting game community. Before I knew what I was doing, I was holding my own in fights and making (somewhat) intelligent decisions about how to approach the game and the players I was facing -- and I don't think I've ever experienced anything as satisfying as that.
The crown jewel of Street Fighter 6 as the quintessential starting point for any fighting game hopeful is World Tour.
A brand new addition to Street Fighter, this mode allows players to create their own custom character and venture beyond the battle ground and out into the world of Street Fighter to explore and experience a story all about literally starting from the bottom and working your way up to a seasoned fighter. Your journey begins under the teaching of the new face of Street Fighter, Luke, as he teaches you the basics of combat. From there, the story follows a relatively basic but compelling journey of meet- ing various icons from the Street Fighter saga and quite literally learning from the very best. Over the course of World Tour, you’ll be given the chance to learn and adapt your very own move- set to suit your own style of combat. In doing so, you learn about the types of character you might gravitate towards and the type of approach you might want to take when you move onto the global stage.
The story of World Tour teaches you that the journey to improvement starts and ends as soon as you want it to, and comprehensively captures the spirit of the fighting game in a nutshell. Games like Tekken feature stories all about godlike fighters duking it out in high stakes conflict, and there's a disconnect between these powerful fighters and the skill of newcomers. The same is true for the vast majority of fighting games, and even other games in the Street Fighter series. World Tour marks a new age of the fighting game story, where the player is put in the spotlight and told that “it’s okay to start out at the bottom” and tells them that nothing is impossible if they put practice and thought to it.
While Street Fighter might not be winning awards for having the most provocative or mindblowing narrative of all time, this new angle for storytelling sets the stage for a new type of story to emerge, where players take control of their own story and are encouraged. In that way, it might be one of the most resonant stories that has ever been attempted in a game – while making you feel as cool as anything when you finally land that combo that you’ve spent hours on and land the killing blow to one of your friends.
Street Fighter 6 is only set to grow more and more over the course of years of new characters and stages to experience. With a constantly changing battlefield and one of the most supportive communities in the gaming space, there’s literally no reason to not give Street Fighter 6 a look. You might find a new passion – and you might come across me on the streets!
