Street Fighter 6 brings the series back to multiplatform, shakes up the formula

After an eternity of updates to SFV, Street Fighter 6 is official. With it, the series emerges from exclusivity, and makes a few key alterations.

The World Warriors

Street Fighter fans have been waiting pretty darn patiently for yesterday’s news. If you missed it, that came by way of Sony’s State of Play online event, which heralded the arrival of a sixth (numbered) game in the series.

But while it was Sony’s event that featured the news, SF6 will indeed be returning the Capcom fighting game series to multiple platforms. While that will again mean the PS4 and PC, as well as the PS5, it’ll also be coming to the Xbox Series X|S.

Of course, that’s not the only change this time around. Capcom is shaking things up a little, with some new modes, mechanics, controls, and… commentary? Yep, there’s going to be commentary similar to a wrestling game this time around. Weird? You bet. But it’s kind of neat anyway, since Capcom will be sourcing actual tournament voices for it.

As for the game itself, it’s powered by the RE Engine, and is looking terrific.

Here’s a rundown:

• Brand New Game Modes: The Street Fighter franchise continues to hone its skills and redefine the fighting genre with the introduction of three new foundational modes – Fighting Ground, World Tour and Battle Hub.
• In-Game Commentating: The Real Time Commentary Feature incorporates the voices of popular Fighting Game Community (FGC) commentators like Jeremy “Vicious” Lopez and Ryutaro “Aru” Noda directly into the game! Players will have a choice of personalities to narrate matches as they happen with easy-to-understand gameplay explanations. This feature will also support subtitles in 13 languages for increased accessibility.
• New Control Scheme: The Classic Control Type is back alongside a new option. The Modern Control Type allows players to jump into the action with simplified inputs. Special moves are easier to execute with this scheme by combining one button press with a directional input.
• New Core Fighting Mechanics: Street Fighter 6 introduces the Drive System, a new gauge used to perform five distinct techniques to enhance a player’s offensive or defensive capabilities, including Drive Impact, Drive Parry, Overdrive Art, Drive Rush and Drive Reversal.

While all of that’s welcome (more or less), fans can expect to see “Arcade Mode, online matches, Training Mode, local versus battles and more” all make comebacks. So even if you don’t dig the new additions, it sounds like most of what you liked from earlier games will be back.

As for the roster, and rumor aside, there’s little that’s been actually confirmed. We know for sure that Ryu and Chun-Li will be back, as well as Luke, and newcomer “expert breakdancer Jamie”. You can see all of them in the trailer above if you haven’t watched yet.

Capcom says that much more is coming though, and we’ll be getting regular news releases right up til launch. You can expect that… well actually, we have no idea. There’s no release date just yet.