Street Fighter 6 hands-on: The world warrior is relevant (and fun) again

LOS ANGELES—After spending two days smacking strangers around in the world's first playable version of Street Fighter 6, I'm convinced that this is the entry that will bring me, a casual fighting game player, back to the series. Already, this "2023" fighting game is beautiful. It's accessible. Its combat has real impact. And its strategies and moment-to-moment gameplay come with clearer consequences and learning opportunities than I've ever seen in a Capcom fighter. As the version I played was quite early, with only four playable characters, I'm left with the impression that Capcom still has some fine-tuning to do. I can already imagine where the devs will focus efforts like damage balancing, recovery windows, and other numerical tweaks. I'll do my best to share what I've learned so far about SF6's myriad of systems, particularly the "drive" abilities that gather prior games' coolest mechanics into a "greatest movement hits" gumbo. These all appear to be subject to change. But the most crucial stuff—the delirious fun that made me want to cancel all of my other appointments at an in-person Summer Game Fest event and play more Street Fighter 6—already feels locked in.

New, optional “modern” controls: Dumbed down yet clever

Despite being a pretty lousy fighting game player, I found I was immediately able to hold my own against my earliest opponents. What's more, the difference-maker wasn't necessarily the series' new "modern" control suite—though I still appreciated it as a mostly elegant option.

Think of the modern control option (as opposed to the game's other option, a familiar, six-button "classic" mode) as a way to play SF6 with "macro" button command chains built in. The most substantial difference is a button dedicated to "special" attack activation, and it resembles Smash Bros. and other arena brawlers. Press the joystick in different directions at the same time as the dedicated special button (triangle on PlayStation), and you'll get the same result as if you committed to the typical quarter-circle, half-circle, or hold-back motion demands. Modern players only get three attack buttons instead of six, and it's like returning to a classic Sega Genesis gamepad, only with Capcom deciding for you whether your quick, medium, or fierce attack will be a punch or kick. That kind of control detail matters more when chaining together combos, but SF6's modern option has your back here. Hold "R2" or "RT" on a gamepad, then tap any of the attack buttons, and so long as your timing is on point, you'll rattle off a basic attack combo, nimbly switching between punches, kicks, and special attacks, as if you'd downloaded martial arts knowledge from the Matrix. Unfortunately, modern mode users cannot adjust special attacks between weak, medium, and fierce variants; Ryu's "Hadouken" fireball is always the same speed for modern control users, for example. Additionally, a few special commands aren't available outside of classic mode, such as Ryu's new "tap down twice, then punch" move, which adds a bit more power to his next Hadouken fireball (though this comes with the risk of the charging move being interrupted).

Driving ahead with the enticing new “drive” system

Once I switched to the classic control suite in my testing, I didn't return to modern. Why? Because most of the stuff I needed to effectively fight was at my disposal. However you choose to play SF6, its new "drive" system has been designed to be immediately comprehensible so that anyone can feel like they're in a real fight—able to commit to specific counters or tactics based on timing. In both control modes, the two biggest abilities on the counter and responsiveness front are one button press away.

Making faces

Before every match, players can hold down one of four directions to change the expression on their zoomed-in fighter's face. If you ever played Soul Calibur II, which included options to activate pre-fight shouts, you know what you're in for. The inherent about-to-fight comedy of these facial grimaces is pretty fantastic, and Summer Game Fest attendees were already grappling with how to shift from one face to the next to imitate anything from kissing to burping. My other favorite SF6 tidbit is how quickly rematches begin, should two players want to commit to their mains and go for another round. No facial tomfoolery there; the process is as fast as the pause between rounds one and two of a standard match. I'll need to play SF6 in a quieter room to judge Capcom's wackiest new addition: built-in play-by-play announcers. From what I can tell, this optional feature includes a lot of repetitive color chatter, but I didn't get annoyed by the announcer's narration in my first few hours of play, at least. The first, "drive impact," most resembles focus attacks from Street Fighter IV. If you feel like an enemy is approaching with a specific straightforward attack, use this move to absorb some of the hit and then blow them back with a brutal attack. As in SF4, this requires commitment on a recovery level, but it has another cost: two bars of your "drive meter" (which maxes out at six bars and exists alongside the traditional "super" attack bar). Unlike in SF4, this move has a fixed "wind-up." Also unlike SF4, it doesn't absorb the same infinite amount of damage that focus attacks did; if a foe lands a three-hit combo while you're winding up in drive impact mode, the collision will end with both parties getting knocked down. "Drive parry," comparatively, drains roughly one drive meter bar and simply catches a foe's attack in a way that still requires successful parry users to respond with an appropriate attack (and doesn't have the same finite damage-absorption caveat as drive impact). For more battling spice, you can hold drive parry down until it drains the entirety of your meter (though if you stand still doing this for too long, your opponent can throw you or otherwise counter; it's meant for more instant attack responses). Drive parrying presents an additional benefit for savvy players: It restores a single bar of your drive meter when used successfully. So in instances you would normally use an anti-air attack like a dragon punch, you might notice your drive bar running low and opt for a parry instead. (From there, attackers have the new option to expect a parry, land with a non-attack, and punish the parry's recovery window.) Parries are always done while standing upright, not kneeling, and they cannot be activated while in mid-air. (Sorry, SF Alpha fans; mid-air blocks have been nixed.)

Drive system, continued: Overdrive, reversal, rush, and burnout

The following section goes deeper into the drive bar's nuts and bolts. While these explanations provide more information than casual fighting game fans may need, they show interesting twists to the series' usual battling cadence in ways I haven't seen other fighting games attempt. During the course of routine combat, SF6 stresses the importance of its drive bar in key ways. Longtime SF players know about "EX" attacks, which consume a small portion of the super attack bar and supercharge your existing special attacks, like a double-burst Hadouken or a longer Chun-Li kick flurry. These are now known as "overdrive" attacks. They're activated the same way as classic EX attacks: Press two punch or kick buttons instead of one while committing to a normal attack pattern. But now, instead of sipping at your super attack meter, these moves cost two bars of drive meter.

Graphics

After flexing its RE Engine system in Resident Evil and Monster Hunter games, Capcom is finally bringing the tech to Street Fighter—and it has never looked better. Though the game currently leans too heavily on motion blur, its particle effects and paint splashes are exciting, not distracting. Screenshots may suggest that they're a bit too much, but Capcom employs half-second pauses during dramatic moments to emphasize these effects. The demo, running on PS5 dev kits, currently runs at well below 4K resolution. RE Engine appears to rely on temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to upscale from a lower base, and the result looks soft. Yet this early demo's ability to lock to 60 fps has me optimistic (especially with so much handsome character detail). I imagine the base PS4 version will lean more on TAA to upscale from a lower resolution, while current-gen machines will run SF6 in crisper fashion down the line. There are two more drive moves to list, and each costs a single bar of the drive meter. The first, "drive reversal," must be activated as a perfectly timed block to push foes away ("hard punch," "hard kick," and forward on the joystick, simultaneously). The second, "drive rush," is an instant, temporarily invincible dash forward (tap forward twice while standing in drive parry stance). Admittedly, these moves didn't figure as much into my SGF demo's fun; the drive reversal in particular was too finicky to effectively activate, and even Capcom representatives couldn't consistently trigger the effect. But I can already imagine both being useful, and there's also the matter of the drive bar's dark side—"burnout"—figuring into tougher fights. When your drive bar is spent, your fighter looks dazed, and he or she suffers from a bunch of temporary debuffs. In addition to reduced speed, reduced damage, and reduced defense stats, players in burnout mode can be stunned if a foe pulls off a successful drive impact attack (and there's no other way to induce stun in SF6). Additionally, the concept of "chip damage" has been changed. When you take damage while blocking, this now wears down your drive bar's meter. If you're in burnout, chip damage wears down your health more than in older Street Fighter games—and makes the issue of dying by blocked fireballs a lot more dramatic as a result.

Getting to know combatants via move lists

Capcom's Summer Game Fest demo focused on four of the revealed characters thus far: old favorites Ryu and Chun-Li and newer combatants Luke and Jamie. Three have previously appeared in Street Fighter games, and anyone familiar with their prior appearances should feel mostly at home—though now their move activations have been shuffled around. Street Fighter V needed years to land on its variety of V-Skill, V-Trigger, and V-Reversal moves, and these are now inserted into SF6's remixed variety of special moves. Below, I've included a gallery of every single maneuver in the game. Relative newcomer Luke (who debuted last year as SFV's final DLC character), plus a comparison between how his "classic" and "modern" special moves work: Classic standby Ryu: New Street Fighter character Jamie: And everyone's favorite Chinese world warrior, Chun-Li: When a special move includes bars in its listing, these indicate what kinds of meter cost they require. The purple bars are for your super meter, which does not regenerate between rounds. The green bars indicate a cost to the drive meter—though only if they're activated as overdrive moves with two buttons (aka the old EX system).

Surprising spice and approachability with only four characters

With only a few hours of gameplay, I'm nowhere near ready to deliver a verdict on these four characters—especially since Street Fighter games always live and die by how matchups play out across a massive roster. I liked playing as each character thus far, but this four-fighter selection is not a particularly diverse spread as far as Street Fighter classics are concerned. Each has a comparable arsenal of grapples, combos, anti-airs, and ranged blasts, though I'm sure that a few more hours with the game would help me determine exactly how SF3-like Chun-Li is in her latest revision.

Honestly, Jamie is the spiciest option at first blush. His drunken-boxing style lets players build and spend a unique "drinks" meter on various special moves—with a maxed drunken state essentially activating a "V-ism" flurry of higher attack speed. Yet the more time I spent with Luke, the more I appreciated how his "tackle" move, which is used to step into a follow-up attack of your choice, opened up feints and combo possibilities.

modes, rollback, crossplay

SFV shipped without anything resembling a single-player mode, and SF6 seems poised to correct this deficiency when it launches next year. However, Capcom hasn't explained how this mode will work beyond the teases it showed in the game's reveal trailer a few weeks ago. The same goes for an online lobby system, which received a seconds-long tease in the same trailer. We at least have confirmation that the game's online play will use a rollback netcode model, just like in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, and that online crossplay will work across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. The Summer Game Fest build mentions a new mode I hadn't noticed in prior coverage: "a party-style mode that adds special rules and mechanics to your battles." Capcom reps at Summer Game Fest were not ready to say what this "special" gameplay mode might look like in the final game. My big question for now: What happens when certain leaked characters, each with a wide range of battle-controlling abilities, emerge as part of SF6? How will their classic abilities and SFV-specific V-functions be spread between the new game's normal, super, and overdrive activations? Capcom has to juggle expectations and drive-powered wackiness with every character reveal going forward, and I don't expect every upcoming character to feel perfect upon its premiere. But there's a lot of fun to be mined from the four characters I've played so far. Luke in particular feels wholly reborn in SF6's new systems; drive impact and drive parries let him play a revitalized game of footsie against opponents who might otherwise expect him to be a slower, lumbering brawler. And I've already seen experienced Street Fighter players in the Summer Game Fest lines figuring out Ryu's and Chun-Li's entirely new combos, which reward clever counters and anti-airs to bounce foes off of walls and rack up significant damage. Arguably my most lasting impression came when I'd accumulated roughly four hours of play and had an open slot next to me. I gestured to nearby onlookers, and one approached to play. He remarked about how bad he was at Street Fighter games, and I immediately felt comfortable sharing my limited insights about what I had figured out thus far. My foe offered an enthusiastic "yeah!" when he took some of my advice, and we had a great match talking out how we felt about the game. I enjoyed the dance of going back and forth with drive impacts and parries—moves that required very little Street Fighter know-how to understand and make good use of—and I savored moments in which someone got pushed to the brink of a drive meter running out. I consistently found myself cheering for either myself or my opponent, thanks to these standout tide-turning moments. And the more I played, the more I was astounded by the little touches that emerged during frantic battles. My favorite came when both players activated drive impact attacks at around the same time, an action that painted the whole screen in even more dazzling spray paint effects before showing on a frame-by-frame basis who tapped their move later, thus giving them the edge in activating the move as a counter. I'm sure some of that wide-eyed wonder will dissipate once the game emerges on home consoles next year; I'm in a privileged position to feel like I'm at a pizza parlor in late 1993, hashing out the likes of Cammy and T-Hawk for the first time. But the vibe is there. SF6 is the kind of fighting game in which counters and reversals feel immediately apparent and powerful—and worth chatting about and engaging with to see what you and your opponents do with them.