By all accounts, Street Fighter 6 is a hit fighting game that's received overwhelming praise from critics and players alike, selling more than two million copies since June 2, 2023. It headlined the Evolution Championship Series. It's a staple on Twitch and other streaming platforms. So, when I had the chance to chat with members of the game's development team at Evo 2023 during Sunday Finals, I leaped at the opportunity.
Below is my brief chat with Capcom's Takayuki Nakayama and Shuhei Matsumoto, director and producer of Street Fighter 6, respectively. It's translated from Japanese to English, and lightly edited for clarity. The interview was conducted before Capcom revealed A.K.I. as a new DLC character.
PCMag: Rashid is the new DLC character. What is the process of determining characters that appear in the default roster vs. DLC?
Capcom: In the case of Rashid, he was obviously a very popular character in Street Fighter V. We didn't have any other characters from the Middle East, so that's some representation that we wanted to include. But in terms of how we determine post-launch characters, it's based on what we currently see in the original lineup. For example, do we have global characters? We also try to maintain a healthy balance between male versus female characters, and try to have a variety of different fighting styles. So, all these things are taken into consideration to determine who the next character should be in the lineup.
(Credit: Capcom)Will DLC characters appear in the World Tour mode?
Yeah, definitely. All DLC characters.
World Tour mode was such a love letter to Final Fight. Will Cody, Haggar, or any of those characters appear as DLC characters?
We can't really say anything about future characters beyond what we've already announced right now. So we'll have to wait and see.
Characters are created with certain play styles in mind, but do you see people using them in unexpected ways?
It's only really been two months since the release of the game, so we're not seeing too many unexpected ways that players are utilizing certain characters. But as time goes on and more and more people get hands-on with it, we're expecting some surprises here and there in terms of new combo routes.
One of the most inspiring and heartwarming moments from this year's Evo was seeing BlindWarriorSven win his pool match vs. EternalPancake. Could you explain how Street Fighter 6's accessibility features help blind people play?
First, we identified the information that was important and relevant to blind players, whether that's the distance from yourself to the opponent, the height of the attack, low remaining health, or the length of the Super Arts gauge. Then we worked with our sound team to provide audio cues to the player. It needs to make sense, even if you can't visually see what's happening. From there, we invited blind Japanese players to test the features. Through trial and error, we polished the features and made the necessary changes.
That's a great addition that opens the door to so many other people playing. On the topic of accessibility features, have you seen any surprising data in terms of people using Modern Controls?
We are tracking data on how frequently Modern is being utilized. This was something we did in the closed beta before the game was released to the public. We noticed a significant increase in Modern users once the game became available to the public. We're continuously seeing more and more people trying Modern after they learn a little more about it, and how applicable and easy it is to use. So it's moving in an upward trajectory, which we are definitely happy about.
Are simplified controls the future of fighting games?
We can't speak on fighting games from other publishers, but for Street Fighter, we see Modern Controls as a solution to a particular problem that's existed for quite a while. Even if you're having a hard time playing, executing special moves in fighting games should be fun, right? I think we were able to succeed with our goals for Street Fighter 6, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will apply perfectly to other fighting games.
For more, check out The Best Fighting Games and The 7 Best Super Smash Bros. Alternatives.
