The Many Genre Novelties in Street Fighter 6

It shouldn't be all too surprising to hear that there are a bunch of novelties in Street Fighter 6, all things considered. The very pinnacle of the fighting game genre has been relatively stale for some time, with indies and AA productions - the few that there are - nudging the niche forward in various ways. Sometimes, that means leveraging cutting-edge technologies for improved networking, while other times, it may relate to how a fighting game's content is shown to the player. Capcom aims to take some of this cutting-edge, borderline experimental territory back with SF6, and how the studio is going about this is nothing short of impressive.

Note that some of these things we did touch upon in our late-2022 coverage of Street Fighter 6. At the time, we discussed the three big pillars of the game and how important it is that Capcom is taking a new approach with its star franchise. Today, we've got heaps more details to share. More importantly, though, we've got the context we had been missing at the time. So, let's get to it!

READ MORE: Everything You Need to Know About Street Fighter 6 on PC

Novelties in Street Fighter 6: How Big of a Deal Are They, Really?

It should be plainly obvious that we won't be able to know how successful Capcom ends up being with Street Fighter 6 until the game is actually out, on June 2nd. You can, of course, get your copy right here via 2Game! What we do know already, though, is how hard Capcom is trying to leverage this IP's true value.

There's a slew of exciting new game features and combat modes to explore in Street Fighter 6. The most important part, for sure, is the fact that they're not standalone mini-games or some such. Instead, they're all built around the central combat gameplay that fans of the franchise will know and love. A highly technical, expertly tuned combat loop that hinges upon the players' understanding of the meta.

Instead of simply pushing everyone into one or two dedicated fighting modes with a mini-game slapped on top - for posterity's sake - Capcom is now taking a different approach. Something a bit more holistic, one might say.

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More Things to Do, Wherever You Turn

Street Fighter 6 is, for all intents and purposes, attempting to become a veritable fighting game platform. New characters, stages, and stories are all well and good. They are, however, also completely expected: that's what fighting games have always had in droves, right? No, instead, there's a bunch of exciting new features we hadn't yet seen in Capcom's designated format:

• Built-in commentators
• Modernized controls
• 'Drive' combat mechanics (Parry, Rush, Reversal, Impact, Overdrive) for deeper combat systems

These centralized bits will help nudge Street Fighter 6's core gameplay loop into the next generation. Built using Capcom's battle-tested RE Engine,  SF6 is going to be at the very cusp of genre development, there's no doubt about that. These cutting-edge features don't mean much if players don't get to experience them, though. That's where the truly exciting novelties come into the picture:

• Fighting Ground
• World Tour
• Battle Hub

Our veteran readers will recall: these are the three big gameplay pillars we previously talked about. These will help the game stand out both from its predecessors and from its competitors in equal measure. All-new ways to experience the world of Street Fighter and all it offers, from various social spaces all the way to open-world exploration and roaming about. All with custom characters in tow, mind. Exciting stuff, is it not?

The goal, from the looks of it, is to give the player a chance to unwind, relax, and get a breather. All without being forced out of the game. Instead, just turn around and do some other stuff if you're tired of the basic fighting model! And, unlike some of the other franchises' previous attempts at pulling off something similar, it won't sequester the players into entirely different genres.

Will Extra In-Game Activities Pan Out?

The way it's all going to work is actually rather simple. The Battle Hub is, at its core, an adapted social space where players can interact with others. With support for up to 100 individual players in a single Battle Hub instance, this feature has immense potential to become the fighting game hangout hotspot, should it pan out. Capcom has also confirmed that Battle Hub instances have various minigames that players can participate in, like Final Fight arcades.

The Fighting Ground is, from the looks of it, the usual set of features you'd expect in a fighting game. Training, Arcade, Online, and - naturally - Local Versus modes are available via this feature. Those who want to avoid actual novelties in Street Fighter 6 can jump into this set of menus and get on with it: neat, simple, and easy to use.

Finally, there's the World Tour, which is Capcom's favored game mode by the looks of it. In World Tour, players get to experience open-world exploration of Street Fighter 6's Metro City. Details are still a tad slim, mind, but it seems like World Tour will allow players to enjoy something along the lines of action-adventure questing and, most interestingly, a chance to see what the SF universe is all about. Players can expect to meet up with veteran Street Fighter characters along the way, it seems, tying the whole thing together in quite an unprecedented way for the genre.

Novelties in Street Fighter 6 Shouldn't Overstay Their Welcome

Of course, the balancing between all these new tidbits and the actual combat loop of Street Fighter 6 will be what makes or breaks the game. There are no two ways about this: either Capcom hits the home run, or the game tanks under the weight of its bolted-on novelties.

So far, it does appear that Capcom's got its proverbial head on the swivel. In fact, if you're reading this on the day of publication, you're going to want to check out the new SF6 Showcase (April 20th) to see what other stuff Capcom might have planned for us. As long as the focus remains on a tight, impeccably tuned combat system with all the extras remaining optional, we foresee great things ahead for this classic franchise. In the interim, do stay tuned for more - right here at 2Game!

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