What can we expect from Street Fighter 6?
At the end of the third day for the Capcom Pro Tour 2021 Season Final, after the legendary Street Fighter player “The Beast” Daigo Umehara was defeated by his protegé, Kawano, Capcom released 2 trailers for upcoming games.
The first one, celebrating the 35th Anniversary of Street Fighter, was the trailer for a compilation of 10 Capcom classics with new online modes. The second, however, was the one who took the Fighting Game Community by storm: a teaser trailer for Street Fighter 6 was released. We still don’t know much about this upcoming title, but let’s break down the little information we have, as well as throw out some predictions.
Street Fighter 6 Story
Ryu looks the buffest we have ever seen.
Obviously, with a 40-second trailer in which the only spoken words are Luke saying “Alright. You ready?”, there’s still not much information on what the story will be about. Capcom has, however, provided us with some insight into details about the future story of SF.
SF games have been following a non-linear chronology in terms of the canon story, in which the correct chronological order of events is:
- Street Fighter (1987)
- Street Fighter Alpha (1995)
- Street Fighter II (1991)
- Street Fighter IV (2008)
- Street Fighter V (2016)
- Street Fighter III (1997)
As Capcom has made very clear that they intend for Street Fighter III to be the finale of the story, the most likely option would be that the next game will actually take place between SFV and SFIII, so after the heroes take down Bison’s Shadaloo and right before the rise of Gill’s Illuminati.
Even though it is definitely possible that SF6 will take place after the fall of the Illuminati and continue the story past SFIII, the other most likely route is actually a story reset. After all, in SFV’s Rose’s Character Story, it is implied that she will need to go back in time to the Street Fighter Alpha days to attempt to change the future. If indeed time travel is introduced in the series, a whole revamped version of Street Fighter can be on our horizon.
Street Fighter 6 Release Date
Up until now, and because the short teaser trailer was just released, there is no set release date for Street Fighter 6 provided by Capcom. What was promised though, is that in this year’s summer we will have more news about the game.
If we compare with how Capcom proceeded with SFV, back then the first trailer came out in late 2014 and the game was only released almost 2 years later. If the same time window is to be expected, SF6 may still take a couple of years to be available.
Street Fighter 6 Gameplay
As the trailer that came out is solely cinematographic, it is not yet possible to even know what the in-game graphics will look like, much less have a clear understanding of how the gameplay for it will be.
Each Street Fighter game has a unique system and identity, which is part of the reasons why there are still tournaments and online matches for some of the earlier entries in the series, from SFII to SFIV, and of course, SF6 will not be an exception. Will we have a parry system like the one from 3rd Strike? How will the new comeback mechanic play out? How will combos work and will the game keep favoring offense over defense like in SFV? These are all questions we need to have answered soon, and hopefully when Summer arrives, the answers will begin to come with it.
What we know for sure is that it will be a fighting game, with PVP online competition as that is the standard for the franchise. We can also count on a very footsies-based, grounded game, as it is the very essence of the Street Fighter experience.
Street Fighter 6 Trailer
Street Fighter 6 - Teaser Trailer
This is the only trailer that Capcom released so far, and oh, does it look amazing. With “wide” Ryu and “joker” Luke, the hype is real for this next installment!
Street Fighter 6 Developer
To the absolute surprise of no one, the Japanese developer Capcom will be behind this next behemoth that will soon be introduced to the FGC.
As we are living in what can pretty much be called the second golden age of fighting games, we are having title after title coming out, and after rival company SNK’s release of King of Fighters XV earlier this year, Capcom will definitely try to pull out all the stops with Street Fighter 6. After all, SFV is still pretty much at the height of its popularity, and still, Capcom never ceases to amaze us with new announcements like this.
Regarding the director for the new game, it has not been made public yet who it may be, but it is definitely on the table that it may be SFV’s director Takayuki Nakayama taking the helm once again.
There are still many months left for the game’s release, possibly years, and you can count on Capcom to milk every inch of teaser material along the way on the road to Street Fighter 6’s now inevitable debut.
Street Fighter 6 News
Luke is carrying a brand new look and hairstyle, even though he has not even been out for half a year.
Again, we will need to wait for the Summer to have more substantial news, whether it may be about the game’s development, or at least about some of the gameplay details. Most likely the next announcement for Street Fighter 6 will be after June 22nd, when the new 10-game compilation, Capcom Fighting Collection, is set to be released.
As Fighting Collection includes, among many other features, several new online modes, it is expected that Capcom will allow players to breathe in this new release before shifting the attention to the next SF installment.
On top of this, we can’t forget that SFV is still going strong, and Capcom has announced a new balance patch to occur in March 2022. We can also fasten our seatbelts for one more competitive season throughout the year and a few imminent official eSports tournaments for SFV well before SF6 even sees the light of day.
Street Fighter 6 Revelations
Are G and Q really the same person?
One constant among all Street Fighter entries throughout the years, as well as pretty much all fighting games ever, is that there must be a final boss, the main villain, the force to beat at the end of the game’s story or arcade playthrough, as well as the driving evil force within the plot. And in SF6, we may have the answers to Street Fighter’s biggest mystery ever.
Little is known about Q, who first appeared in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike back in 1999. The mysterious fighter always wears a metallic mask and not much is known about him. What we do know is that he has been in many places in the world of Street Fighter, and a link can be made between him and various disasters. He also appears in 3rd Strike as a hidden sub-boss that you can only fight after meeting specific requirements, indicating that he may be an antagonizing power.
Then, almost 20 years later, Capcom announced a new character to be added to the SFV roster: G, the self-proclaimed President of the Earth. This mysterious character keeps preaching about how every person on Earth should be united as one, but the true extent of his meaning is not yet revealed.
G’s flamboyant and outspoken personality radically contrasts with Q’s expressionless demeanor. However, besides both sharing similar names, it’s important to note that their moveset and stature are amazingly similar and that one of G’s costumes looks like a prototype version for Q’s masked visual presentation.
It is safe to say that these 2 are indeed the same character and there are numerous fan theories regarding the G/Q situation. What we can expect is that if SF6 indeed takes place between SFV and SFIII, then we will know what causes such a big transformation for the character, and hopefully, most of the mysteries surrounding these two will be unveiled.
Street Fighter 6 Predictions
Picking up on the G situation discussed above, we would like to add some predictions to the table.
Firstly, it is important to note that in Rose’s Character Story, both Rose and Oro perceive G as being a terrible threat to the future of the world, despite his good intentions. With all this information, it is safe to assume that G will most likely be the main villain for SF6 and that the plot of the game will revolve around his story, his true intentions, and how he comes to become Q, or at least what’s his relationship with the Q character.
Another big point, picking up from Rose’s story, is the possibility of time travel and how it can impact the series. One way to go would be having the main protagonists try to go back in time to stop G from destroying the world, and causing a reset to the Street Fighter chronology in the process, opening a thousand doors not only for a possible Street Fighter 7 happening outside of the chronological restrictions for the sake of continuity but also to Street Fighter 6 itself, unveiling the possibility for crossed timelines within the same game, allowing dead characters from the past to interact with newer characters from the SFV and SFIII present.
Last but not least, let’s not forget that Capcom has confirmed multiple times that the latest SF character, Luke, will be of tremendous importance to the SF6 story, which can be evidenced by him being the one who appears in the released trailer standing face to face with Ryu. We can expect Luke to be the main protagonist of SF6, much like Alex was for SFIII, or at least for him to simply be the blonde American aligned with the forces of good such as Abelin SFIV or Nash in SFV.
Street Fighter 6 Modes
When SFV had its original release in 2016, it was heavily criticized for not supporting any modes besides online and offline PvP versus mode and the lackluster survival mode for single player. It was only almost 2 years after the initial release that the much-desired additions of an Arcade Mode and new Challenges to explore, including the always beloved combo trials.
For SF6, we can hope that Capcom has learned their lesson and that this time around the game will be released with not only improved multiple single play options (such as a harder difficulty story mode, new challenges, and even unforeseen gameplay features) but also, of course, new PvP play features, being that the whole SF franchise is built upon the competitive scene and the FGC. We can already have a glimpse of the focus on these new features with the addition of the new online tournament mode for SFV, and we can expect to be caught by surprise with what Capcom has reserved for us.
Street Fighter 6 Roster
As for the roster, one would think that a sizable roster would be in the books to start off the game, after the recent SFV backlash upon release. But most likely one would be wrong in thinking that. After all, in every SF game so far, the initially released version always includes just a small portion of the roster, with more characters being added with new versions of the game released later on, or more recently, with the addition of DLC characters and season passes.
If we go back in time we can see this pattern repeated over and over again:
- SFII’s original roster of 8 characters became 16 by Super Street Fighter II Turbo
- SFAlpha’s original playable roster of 10 characters became 43 by Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX
- SFIII’s original playable roster of 11 characters became 20 by Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
- SFIV’s original arcade roster of 16 characters became 44 by Ultra Street Fighter IV
- SFV’s original roster of 16 characters became 46 by Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
SF6 should be no different, and Capcom has shown to not be afraid in the slightest when it comes to introducing new characters and chopping off some of the series mainstays, so you can expect a small but hopefully quality roster upon the game’s release.
We already know Ryu and Luke will definitely be part of the game, and for the reasons already described, we can expect to see G and Rose in the mix, as well as Neo Shadaloo founder Ed and at least one or more of the organization’s members. It’s also set that some long-awaited returns will be felt with the likes of Dudley or Hakan joining the fight, and if the time travel storyline indeed has some impact in SF6, then we could be about to witness some interesting debuts such as Gouken’s and Akuma’s master Goutetsu, for a change.
At the end of the day, fans of the Street Fighter franchise still have a long way to go until they get their hands on Street Fighter 6, and until then, the focus will definitely be on all the amazing SFV events that await us, especially now that we know the game has its days counted.
In the meantime, expect Capcom to blow you away with unexpected and intriguing announcements, and we will be here to cover all the latest news for you.
