After a week of speculation, Capcom’s mysterious countdown clock finally hit zero. Well, not exactly, as the announcement that the countdown was counting down to still had to wait for the final exhibition match of Street Fighter V’s Capcom Pro Tour to finish, which saw Street Fighter legend Daigo Umehara lose to Kawano. When the dust settled, eager SF fans would get their first-ever look at Street Fighter 6 through a brief 40-second teaser trailer.
SF6’s reveal comes six years after SFV was released. It’s no secret SFV got off to a rough start, but throughout its life, Capcom managed an almost complete turnaround resulting in SFV becoming one of the best overall fighting games of the past generation of consoles. This turnaround is thanks in part to Capcom’s fighting game division leadership shifting over from an SF mainstay, producer Yoshinori Ono, to a new director in Takayuki Nakayama and producer in Shuhei Matsumoto. Nakayama and Matsumoto’s work in the latter years of SFV have received overwhelming praise for how they’ve improved SFV’s gameplay, the characters they introduced for the final season of SFV, as well as their open and transparent communication with fans through Nintendo Direct-like presentations. SF fans now have a small taste of Nakayama and Matsumoto’s vision for SF6.
6 Street Fighter 6 Takes A Bold Step Toward A New Art Style
The first thing anyone watching the SF6 teaser would notice is that SF6 sports a surprisingly realistic art style. Both Ryu and Luke show off much more defined muscle movements and veins. In the past, SF would lean more heavily toward a cartoony or anime art style with exaggerated features and expressions. The visual engine SF6 is using is likely Capcom’s renowned RE Engine, which debuted with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, carried over into future Resident Evil titles, and was implemented into other Capcom titles such as Devil May Cry 5 and Monster Hunter Rise.
The expressive style of SF isn’t lost in this shift to realism as both Ryu and Luke each showcase the ink-stylistic flair that has been utilized in both Street Fighter IV and SFV, a style that will likely carry over into SF6.
5 Ryu’s Street Fighter 6 Design Rights A Street Fighter V Wrong
The first character players see in the teaser is the iconic franchise mascot Ryu. It would’ve been bizarre to reveal a new SF game without including Ryu. Ryu ditches the top of his gi, and is sporting a beard. It’s a look that, when combined with the new visual style, has drawn comparisons to recent designs of RE’s Chris Redfield.
Previously, Ryu had an alternate costume similar to this look in SFV, which SF fans have since dubbed “Hot Ryu.” It’s become the growing popular opinion within the SF fandom that “Hot Ryu” should’ve been Ryu’s default look in SFV. This wrong is now being righted in SF6.
4 The Future Of Street Fighter Is Now
The other character featured in the teaser is the final SFV character in Luke. Upon his reveal for SFV, Luke was labeled as being representative of the future of SF. Many SF fans took this information as Luke becoming the protagonist of SF6’s story. Luke’s appearance in SF6’s announcement teaser lends credence to that theory.
Luke sports a new look in SF6 as he ditches the blonde-dyed hairstyle that many SF fans were critical of, likening his hair to spaghetti noodles. Luke also has scars on his face that weren’t present in SFV as well as fewer tattoos on his forearms. Luke and Ryu’s design could also be an indication that SF6 will continue SFV’s trend of providing fresh looks for established characters.
3 Street Fighter 6 Seemingly Takes Place After Street Fighter V
The SF narrative is a muddled and convoluted one. A part of the reason for this is the reluctance to take the SF story beyond the Street Fighter III series. After SFIII was initially met with criticism for overhauling the roster and making SFIII feel more isolated from the rest of the series, Capcom sought to play it safe with SFIV by taking the series back to a time closer to the classic Street Fighter II.
SFV’s story, which follows SFIV, brings the overarching narrative closer than ever to SFIII’s. This has left SF fans to wonder if SF6 will finally move beyond the SFIII threshold and into uncharted territory. Luke’s new design and scars are likely indicative of a significant event that has shaped Luke’s adulthood, and one that could be related to the terrorist attack from his childhood that took the life of his father. Time will tell, however, if this theory is correct and if SF6 does take place after SFIII.
2 The Controversial Street Fighter 6 Logo Is A Series Departure
By far the biggest topic of discussion in relation to SF6 is the logo for the game. SF6’s logo is more minimalistic compared to the expressive logo designs of the past. There’s an “SF” surrounded by a hexagon, which does have six sides. A “6,” notably not in roman numerals like previous SF titles, is spraypainted in the bottom right side of the logo. This drastic departure could signal the approach Capcom is taking with SF6, potentially giving the series a more serious, and modern, underground fighting or professional mixed martial arts theme.
This SF6 logo has been met with near-universal criticism from both the SF community and the greater gaming community, spawning numerous memes and attempted revisions. This backlash was escalated when it was discovered that the logo is eerily similar to an Adobe Stock graphic. Given this backlash, the current SF6 logo isn’t likely long for the world.
1 The Street Fighter 6 Teaser Provides Little Information Of Release Or Consoles
As with any reveal trailer, the most important part is the end. The information dump. When will it release? What consoles will it release on? What’s the name of the song in the trailer? The SF6 teaser revealed none of those things. What was revealed was that more information on SF6 will be announced in the upcoming summer, which will hopefully include which systems SF6 will release on beyond the presumed PlayStation 5 and PC.
Barring delay, the expectation is that SF6 will release in February 2023 as February has been a traditional release month for SF titles, and it fits Capcom’s esports CPT schedule. Also, as a part of the SFV’s final season roadmap, SFV is still set to receive a “CPT 2022” DLC bundle as well as one last major balance patch. These bundles are released at the beginning of each yearly CPT season and come with a new stage and a few costumes with the proceeds for the bundle going toward prize pools for CPT events. This indicates that SFV will have a victory lap year, so to speak, with SF6 presumably taking over in 2023.
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