Even after four years,Street Fighter 5still has a little fight left in it moving into the next generation. With season five, the final content season, just a few more characters will be joining the roster beforeStreet Fighter 5’s support ends. It’s been a long run for Capcom’s premier fighting game this generation; ending in fall 2021 with five seasons of content, two special edition re-releases, and 44 total characters added to the roster. As forStreet Fighter 6, it’s going to be a long time before the next iteration releases.
While many assumed thatStreet Fighter 5’s support would end around Kage’s release, Capcom surprised fans when a new season and character pass was announced. Kage was the only fighter to release strictly standalone prior to the actual character pass, so many assumed he’d be the last character for the game’s development lifespan. Now, with season 4 ending and yet another season on the way into the next console generation,Street Fighter6is clearly much farther away than fans might’ve thought before.
Street Fighter 5’s Life Extends Into 2021
Recently,Capcom announced the final season forStreet Fighter 5, extending the game’s development lifespan out to fall of 2021. Season five brings with it five characters: Dan, Rose, Oro, Akira (fromRival Schools), and an as-yet-unannounced fifth character. Rose and Akira will both bring their own stages, along with a new Capcom Pro Tour stage for 2021. Plus players can expect the usual balance changes at the beginning/middle/end of each season as necessary. Once againStreet Fighteris extending the lifespan of its game past the console generation’s life cycle, and there’s been no announcement (yet) ofStreet Fighter 5making the jump to PS5.
Granted,Ultra Street Fighter 4extended its lifespan that same way on PS3/Xbox 360, but it does hint at the fact thatStreet Fighter 6is likely farther away than fans might like. One of the biggest problems withStreet Fighter 5’s release, two years afterUltra Street Fighter 4, was that it felt lacking in content. The game launched without a singleplayer campaign, no arcade mode, 16 characters, and limited trial combos for all characters. Of course for the hardcore fans this wasn’t inherently an issue, but casualStreet Fighterswere left with nothing but trials and online play. While many of these features were added in post-launch updates,the lack of content didn’t helpStreet Fighter 5’s reception.
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Street Fighter 6 Is Farther Off Than Expected
Capcom ideally wouldn’t want to make the same mistake twice with the nextStreet Fightergame, even though the monetization employed throughoutStreet Fighter 5’s DLC was a great success for the company and did partially fund the Capcom Pro Tour. ReleasingStreet Fighter 6in a similar state to the fifth game, in 2021 or beyond, would garner far more criticism and blowback from fans. Regardless,Street Fighter 6would do well to start with a robust character roster and gameplay experience, and build from there. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with season passes or the traditional DLC approach,but a launch likeStreet Fighter 5for the next game won’t fly. Especially considering all of the other games with predatory DLC plans and microtransaction controversies that have come out since 2016.
Street Fighter 6is almost certainly in development at this point, but it likely won’t release on PS5 (or Xbox Series X/PC) in the next year. PreviousStreet Fighterreleases have not had much lag time between mainline entries, withStreet Fighter 5launching two years after the release ofUltra Street Fighter 4. The unfortunate truth is thatStreet Fighter 5, despite making some significant improvements over the course of its lifespan, was still a lackluster launch that fans were vocally agitated by. WithStreet Fighter 5extending yet another season into 2021,it’s very possibleStreet Fighter 6could be delayedor simply require more development time to perfect.
Extendingdevelopment time on a fighting game is never a bad thing, but it does mean one of the weakerStreet Fightergames in the series' history is going to be sticking around for just a bit longer.
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