Game Street Fighter 6
Developer/publisher Capcom
Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series
Release 2023
During a late-night industry party in 2016, shortly after the calamitous launch of Street Fighter V, we overheard a senior industry figure bemoan the fact that Capcom had been unable to fund completion of the game’s development without Sony’s investment. Shouldn’t this long-standing pillar of the Japanese videogame industry be able to support its marquee fighting-game series without selling off platform exclusivity to the highest bidder? After all, it had been only a few years since the triumph of Street Fighter IV, a game that reinvented the series for the modern era and singlehandedly revitalised the genre it had popularised in the ’90s. That 2008 collaboration between Capcom and Dimps, the outsourcing company founded by Street Fighter’s co-inventor Takashi Nishiyama, had attracted legions of young competitors to a scene that had become, with the persistent but niche popularity of Street Fighter III: Third Strike, increasingly middleaged. How was it not possible, the maven asked his audience, to channel all that momentum into a fully formed sequel, one available to all comers?
Exclusivity was just one issue for a game that limped into the arena burdened with in-game advertising and missing several key features – including a workable singleplayer mode. In time, SFV course-corrected. Conspicuous blanks were filled in via multi-gigabyte updates, advertising screens made optional, and, while the game would never grace an Xbox hard drive, the balance of its notoriously hectic battles was diligently fine-tuned. Eventually the game became a stalwart on the tournament scene.
PALETTE SWAP
Art director Kaname Fujioka explains the thinking behind SF6’s vibrant hues, and how they were assigned to each fighter: “We looked at the personality of each character to decide their individual colours. Ryu, for example, is pure and straightforward, so his colours are mostly clear black and white, with elements of a cochineal red that represent the fact that he has grown older since we last saw him. The new main character, Luke, on the other hand, has a fresh energy represented with colourful splashes of blue and orange. Jamie, Luke’s rival, has a traditional gold base with highlights of passionate red, while Kimberly, who is exuberant and expressive, uses a combination of pop colours like pink and sky blue. Other characters have similar considerations, like fiery red for the dynamic, hot-blooded Ken, or light blue and gold for Chun-Li, who has become a master in this game.”
Still, the memory of that ruinous debut never quite scrubbed away, not least for who, having just arrived at Capcom, had found himself director of its flagship series. “ThereTime has been on our side.”
