Capcom 靠一项决策让《Street Fighter》系列起死回生

The incredible success of Street Fighter‘s latest game has turned the series around after the lackluster performance of Street Fighter 5 back before the turn of the 2020s. Although SF5 got far better in its later editions, Street Fighter 6 represents a popular turn to the franchise not seen since the revolutionary Street Fighter 2 arcade game that started it all. In order for this to happen, certain design choices on Street Fighter 6 needed to be made early, to ensure that it would reach out to the biggest audience of newcomers and genre veterans possible.

In a recent online interview, Street Fighter producer Shuhei Matsumoto commented on the state of the series during the SF5 era, and how its struggles directly influenced the sequel’s direction. Matsumoto took over as the franchise’s producer after the departure of Yoshinori Ono, a person who had been charge of Street Fighter‘s ongoing progress for titles like Street Fighter x Tekken and Street Fighter 5. Following the disastrous launch of SF5, Matsumoto and game director Takayuki Nakayama were largely the ones responsible with “fixing” the game and spear-heading SF6 beyond it.

Street Fighter 6 Had To Make Up For Street Fighter 5’s Mistakes Or Risk The Series’ Future

According to Matsumoto, “When the two of us [Matsumoto and Nakayama] were talking during Street Fighter 5, we realized that if we didn’t do something about Street Fighter, the Street Fighter IP would probably die in 10 years.” This reflected how players were beginning to lose interest in Street Fighter as a whole, largely due to the problems of SF5. Although you could point to the extreme popularity of other fighting games like Dragon Ball FighterZ at the time, SF5 simply lacked features it needed to compete with other titles in the genre. For example, SF5 didn’t have good online matchmaking, and originally didn’t even release with a single-player arcade mode.

New characters and gameplay system changes helped SF5 evolve, but its evolution mainly helped set the stage for Street Fighter 6. If the series had two bad mainline launches in a row, it likely would not have survived to see another anytime soon. Matsumoto talks about how “at that time, the player base for SF5 was roughly 35 to 40 years old. In 10 years, these people will be 60. It’s difficult to sustain the franchise if we only rely on that group.” Large amount of newcomers to fighting games as a whole were not being drawn into SF5, so that was one of the biggest things that needed to change as the series planned a new entry.

While SF6 was planned around getting younger audiences into it first and foremost, Matsumoto also states that “we had to make a game where people would get to know it all over again and play it again,” referring to the IP as a whole. A re-introduction for Street Fighter would not only give it a fresh coat of paint, but also play around with well-known gameplay features to make the new title exciting for veteran audiences too. Instead of relying on the staying power of the IP to keep only older fans around by making the same thing, Street Fighter 6 had to be different enough to attract all types of fans.

Success For Street Fighter 6 Largely Comes From How It Appeals To Non-Fighting Game Players

One of the best choices to come out of Street Fighter 6‘s design approach is put well in Matsumoto’s words, where he says “we decided to act as if the current generation doesn’t know us.” This made each trailer, gameplay decision, and feature of Street Fighter 6 be made to entice people who had never heard or tried Street Fighter before, even if they were aware of it through larger media influence. By not being overconfident or relying too much on player familiarity, Capcom could steer SF6 in a way that included more on-ramp tools for non-fighting game players than any other title in the genre had tried to do before.

The biggest example of this manifested in the celebrated single-player World Tour mode for SF6, which allowed players to create a custom character and fight in an RPG-like setting. The story and structure of World Tour are far different than other single-player modes in other fighting games, marking an innovative feature Capcom supported for quite some time. At the same time, the Modern and Dynamic control schemes were also invented for SF6, making it easier for newcomers to get into the game without having to rely on mechanical knowledge to input special moves or other techniques. Large community features like the Battle Hub also supported newcomers in more ways than Street Fighter usually did.

The focus on making a larger, more complete fighting game product worked out well for Capcom, as SF6 has sold an astounding seven million copies as of June 2026. With its Year 4 DLC still going strong, the game may not be perfect, but it is a huge step up from before, easily being one of the most accessible titles in the genre for new players to try. The Street Fighter series is alive and well thanks to how Capcom shifted its vision for the franchise, even inspiring a live action movie coming to theaters this month too.

What is your favorite part about Street Fighter‘s current direction? Let us know in the comments below!