Blog

Jun 19, 2023

Street Fighter 6

With Street Fighter 6, Capcom finally gives its groundbreaking fighting game

With Street Fighter 6, Capcom finally gives its groundbreaking fighting game series the truly urban feel it deserves. Sure, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike dabbled in it with hip-hop flourishes, but Street Fighter 6 leans into the aesthetic wholesale with its graffiti-based logo, paint-splashed Drive Impact move, arcade-style Battle Hub, and Hub Goods Shop where you can drip out a custom character. Of course, Street Fighter 6 ($59.99) is more than just a vibe—it introduces several gameplay mechanics tied to the new Drive Gauge that lets you fight with more freedom than any Street Fighter in the series' history, enabling creative combat that's as fluid and beautiful as the hip-hop culture that permeates the console (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X) and PC game. In a period of time that shines bright as the second golden age for fighting games, the wonderfully strategic and feature-packed Street Fighter 6 stands tall as the genre's best entry, earning a perfect five stars and our Editors' Choice award.

Blanka, Cammy, Chun-Li, Dee Jay, Dhalsim, E. Honda, Guile, Juri, Ken, Luke, Ryu, and Zangief are the returning Street Fighter 6 characters, and they've aged a bit due to Street Fighter 6 being the most recent game in the timeline (Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V were set before Street Fighter III). The new faces are Jamie, JP, Kimberley, Lily, Manon, and Marisa. The 18-person base lineup has two more characters than Street Fighter V's launch roster, but it significantly trails the team-based King of Fighters XV's 39-fighter core cast. There's another character that's essential to the Street Fighter 6 experience: the player-created avatar used in the Battle Hub and World Tour modes. More on that in a bit.

By default, the character builder has 18 avatar faces and bodies for people who don't want to do much tweaking, but there are a ridiculous number of body, eye, hair, nose, and voice options for creating a goofy, imaginative, or realistic martial artist.

For example, Body Type lets you select a more traditionally feminine or masculine build, while Identity selects your character's gender (which impacts its behavior and how others refer to the character). Likewise, your character's voice isn't locked into either the male or female silos, so you have the freedom to create a fighter that truly matches your vision. Capcom even includes a body-type recipe list to let you easily share your creations. The character creator has inspired the community to produce avatars that include the cool, the angelic, and the horrific.

Powered by Capcom's RE Engine, a tool used to create the outstanding graphics in the recent Resident Evil titles, Street Fighter 6 has incredibly detailed character models that feature rippling clothing, skin wrinkles, toned musculature, and waving hair. Capcom put a lot of work into Street Fighter 6's visual component, which is a welcome change considering Street Fighter V's graphics and art direction weren't particularly impressive.

Street Fighter 6 features three control schemes: Classic, Dynamic, and Modern. They're designed to give three different player types the tools they need to succeed.

Here's an example highlighting how execution differs between the control schemes: To perform Ryu's dragon punch with the Classic layout, you press forward, down, down-forward, and then punch. That can be difficult for newcomers, so the Modern control scheme requires you to just simultaneously press right and the Special Move button. The trade-off is that you can't access Ryu's full move set, including some normals and specials. Dynamic further removes the combat options to the point where it feels as though you're simply maneuvering a character and mashing a button. In our example, you cannot use Dynamic Controls to bust out a fireball whenever you wish; it comes down to how far you are from an opponent. So, to use the online gaming vernacular, you must "git gud" to enjoy all the combat options Street Fighter 6 offers.

Street Fighter 6's combat is fueled by the Drive Gauge, a meter available for use as soon as a round begins. Leveraging it, you can activate five techniques: Drive Impact, Drive Parry, Drive Reversal, Drive Rush, and Overdrive. Let's break them down.

You'll enter a burnout state upon draining the Drive Gauge, which makes meter management (and knowing when to play aggressively or conservatively) an essential and strategic combat element. If your fighter enters burnout, you'll be unable to leverage any Drive Gauge mechanic until it refills over time. Worse still, your character experiences greater block stun, quickly becomes dizzy, and can be KO'd with chip damage. You want to avoid entering burnout at all costs.

Want more news, reviews, gear, and tricks to level up your game? Sign up for our gaming email newsletter.

Street Fighter's combat has never been this fluid and hard-hitting. Each move carries a weight that makes every blow feel significant, due in no small part to the excellent animation that sells blocked and landed attacks. However, it's the Drive Impact and Drive Parry moves that truly separate Street Fighter 6 from its predecessors.

Drive Impact changes Street Fighter's close and midrange meta, as everything from fireballs to footsies can potentially be countered by it. You see, Drive Impact has armor, soaking up to two hits while delivering the blow. As a result, tossing out a random poke can end up with you eating a nasty counter. And if two people simultaneously Drive Impact, both characters swing at each other with a cool, Tekken 7-like slow-motion effect.

You'll be tempted to Drive Parry every attack that comes your way, as this defensive option is much easier to perform here than in Street Fighter III (depending on the control scheme, you simply hold down the medium punch and kick buttons instead of tapping forward at the last minute). However, you don't want to do that. Holding the Drive Parry steadily drains your Drive Gauge, which is vital for your other Drive-related abilities. Drive Parry has a near-instantaneous startup, so you can counter almost anything save for throws. Ideally, you want to time your Drive Parry just as a strike is about to land, as this deflects the attack, gives you an opening, and refunds you the Drive Gauge you spent on the parry. However, if your opponent doesn't attack while you're in the parry stance, you're left wide open for big damage.In a nice touch, Capcom lets you toggle on Battle Damage, which lets your fighter collect bruises and scratches as they absorb damage. It's not a game-changing addition, but it makes these hard-hitting battles more realistic.

Ranked contests utilize a four-tier pyramid scheme, and you're placed in one of eight leagues determined by your accumulated League Points (LP). The base-level Rookie league is where newcomers and scrubs dwell. The next tier up houses people who fight well enough to be placed in the Iron, Bronze, Silver, or Gold categories. Above that are Platinum and Diamond. At the top of the pyramid? Master.

Each league contains five ranks. A 10-match placement series gives the game the knowledge about where to drop you in the pyramid. People in the Rookie league don't suffer LP loss upon losing. After all, novice players grow frustrated upon seeing themselves get ranked down.

Capcom hopes to bring esports-style hype to your non-tournament battles via the new Real Time Commentary feature. There are two English (Steve "TastySteve" Scott, Jeremy "Vicious" Lopez) and Japanese (Aru, Kosuke Hiraiwa) play-by-play announcers, plus two English (James Chen, Thea Trinidad) and Japanese (His Excellency Demon Kakka, Hikaru Takahashi) color commentators.

These voices come from real-world members of the fighting game community (FGC) who call bouts during the Capcom Pro Tour tournament series, and the commentary adds excitement and surprising insight to the matches. The crew gets excited for big combos and tight contests, but they also express disappointment if, say, you enter a burnout state or get pressured into the wall. In fact, you can tweak the announcers to call the action in a neutral fashion or favor you. The latter is like having someone giving you an encouraging pat on the back and further shows Street Fighter 6's commitment to easing in new players. Overall, the commentary is fun if sometimes repetitive. However, that may be due to my tactics not being as mechanically diverse as they should be.

Street Fighter 6 has three main modes: Fighting Ground, the metaverse-like Battle Hub, and World Tour. They offer radically different gameplay experiences.

1990s and early 2000s arcade rats will dig Battle Hub's vibe, as it deftly replicates that arcade experience. It goes beyond simply sitting at an arcade machine; you can text chat with other players (there were several people exchanging battle tips), spectate fights, shop for gear, DJ, and even queue up in line to battle a particular person. In a nice touch, spectating matches lets you view each move's damage date, frame data, and input data, so you can learn from the bouts. You can even have your avatars go at it in the Battle Hub if you don't feel like using Ken, Ryu, and the rest of the cast.

Unfortunately, the Battle Hub is best navigated with a dual-analog controller. If you enter the Battle Hub with a fight stick or fight pad, the lack of a camera-controlling right-analog stick may prove vexing when you suffer an odd viewing angle. There's an option to have the camera locked to your back, which makes it a bit easier to look around, but doesn't completely alleviate the problem. Capcom recommends plugging in a second controller for camera use.

Unlike the typical ranked matches that limit bouts to best-of-three contests, you can rematch a person in casual Battle Hub bouts as much as you like (provided the other player accepts the rematch requests and other players aren't already queued to fight you). Impressively, rematches take mere seconds to load, so you're back in the fray moments after you accept. This is a great way to train with partners and explore combat mechanics. It has the potential to be the best lobby system ever created for a fighting game.

World Tour is equally impressive. The story-based mode centers on your avatar evolving from a lowly martial arts student to a strong fighter. It mainly takes place in Metro City (the Final Fight games' home turf and a stand-in location for New York City), and it sees you challenging everyday citizens and ruffians to street fights. Besides getting tangled up in the narrative that sees you occasionally dip to other nations to learn new moves from master fighters to stop a threat, you take on odd jobs and wacky sidequests. Meanwhile, you the player are learning how to play Street Fighter. For example, if you take a job in a pizza shop, the quarter-circle motions needed to make the pies are the skills needed to hurl a fireball in battle. It's like a training scene from The Karate Kid.

In short, World Tour is a fun and informative adventure, though the international jaunts could be longer in length; for the most part, you simply fight a master-class character from the default roster and that's that. Perhaps DLC will further expand the skimpier international World Tour maps.

Fighting, naturally, is Street Fighter 6's core, but you don't do so strictly for the thrill of victory. By fighting, you unlock cutscenes viewable in the Gallery, as well as a ridiculous amount of art. For example, you'll unlock pieces by fan-favorite artists Akiman and Shinkiro simply by playing the Arcade mode, and they range in quality from humorous to mind-blowingly beautiful.

Street Fighter II's between-match minigames that involved breaking barrels and wrecking a parked car were just as iconic as the fighting action, and gave you an opportunity to practice moves in a non-combat environment (and rack up points). Street Fighter 6 leans into that idea with two minigames that task you with wrecking a huge truck or parrying basketballs an NPC hurls your way. Like their predecessors, these minigames are simple affairs, but provide a nice break in the action.Street Fighter 6 has a free Fighting Pass, a system that earns you cool monthly rewards simply by playing. Of course, Capcom plans to introduce a paid Premium Course that will let you score even better items. Similar to Fighting Pass, Kudos lets you unlock titles for particular characters.

And then there's Extreme Battles, a Fighting Ground mode that wildly differs from standard Street Fighter contests. Instead of being tasked with depleting your opponent's life bar, you must meet a certain number of in-game conditions to achieve victory. In one mode, you must score five knockdowns on your challenger as a rampaging bull crisscrosses the playfield. In another, the first person to complete a list of in-match actions takes the win. Extreme Battles aren't revolutionary, but they provide a fine diversion from the usual Street Fighter fare.

Overall, Street Fighter 6 is one of the most feature-rich fighting games this side of Mortal Kombat 11.

The Battle Hub Goods Shop (the place where you can buy gear) wasn't available in our review period, but early betas offered an idea of how it'll work. Drive Ticket and Fight Coins are the currencies you use to purchase items. You accumulate Drive Tickets by completing challenges, such as partaking in five Battle Hub bouts (worth 3,000 DT) or winning five ranked matches (worth 6,000 DT). Fight Coins, on the other hand, is currency you purchase with real-world money. Why would you do that? It's a faster way to obtain items. For example, a certain set of glasses may cost 600 DT, but only 30 FC. In World Tour mode, new gear alters your avatar's offensive and defensive stats in various ways until you unlock an optional skill that lets you wear anything you want without consequence—it's a terrific skill for people who want to style without consequence.

I dislike microtransactions in full-price games, so I wish Fight Coins didn't exist in Street Fighter 6. Worse, some items were only available for a limited time in the betas, which encourages impulse purchases. However, we haven't seen anything in the store that requires them. If you have the time to grind out matches for a fresh hat, you needn't spend a dime.

Street Fighter 6 is an attractive title, but it doesn't require a high-end machine. According to its Steam page, you need a gaming PC housing at least an AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel Core i5-7500 CPU, AMD Radeon RX 580 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 8GB of RAM, 60GB of storage, and the Windows 10 operating system. If your rig meets these Street Fighter 6 minimum specs, you should run the game with aplomb.

Our test bed—a PC with a 3.2GHz Intel Core i5-4460 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPU, and 16GB of RAM—pushed Street Fighter 6 at a crisp 60 frames per second in matches. The frame rates danced between 30fps and 40fps while walking around a 60-person Battle Hub, and went as high as 60fps in a 20-person Battle Hub. In World Tour mode, Street Fighter 6 moved between 45fps and 60fps depending on the character density.

There are numerous graphics options, including settings for antialiasing, bloom, crowd density, and motion blur. Additionally, you can lock the frame rate at 30fps, 60fps, 90fps, or 120fps, and run the game at five pixel settings ranging from 1,280 by 720 to 3,840 by 2,160 (4K). Like many other recent Capcom releases, Street Fighter 6 comes with the controversial Denuvo anti-piracy tech.

Street Fighter 6 supports Steam Cloud, Steam Trading Cards, and more than three dozen Steam Achievements. If you want to take the fisticuffs on the road, you'll be happy to learn Street Fighter 6 supports Valve's Steam Deck. While playing on the handheld, I enjoyed a smooth 30fps in World Tour mode and 60fps in online multiplayer bouts.

The game also supports cross-platform play between PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, which makes it a breeze to find an opponent due to the large player pool. Based on our time with Street Fighter 6 during its closed beta, open beta, and review periods, we're happy to report the game has silky rollback netcode that lets you play against people from across the globe without major lag or hiccups. However, we're eager to see how this holds up on launch day.

Capcom has a lot riding on Street Fighter 6, especially after Street Fighter 5 stumbled onto the scene with misstep after misstep. Fortunately, the developer learned from recent mistakes to deliver a contemporary Street Fighter title that exceeds expectations with its robust solo and multiplayer modes, thoughtful gameplay that adheres to the series' legacy while introducing fresh elements, and newcomer-friendly controls that beckon a new audience to play. This five-star fighter is an absolutely stacked package that has everything a genre fan would want, plus some things that they didn't even know they wanted. For these reasons, Street Fighter 6 is a no-brainer purchase, and an Editors' Choice pick.

For more on Street Fighter 6, check out our column on how Street Fighter 6 Hype Proves the Franchise Is Bigger Than Fighting Games. Want in-depth video game discussion? Visit PCMag's Pop-Off YouTube Channel. Finally, point your browser toward PCMag's Steam Curator group for video game recommendations.