While we can’t call it an “age-old debate,” the natural dilemma DLC fighting game characters create for more competitively-minded fans is very much alive and well in Street Fighter 6 as four the game’s six DLC characters are clearly among the strongest on the overall roster.
That’s not an issue, in and of itself, but slippery is the slope that takes us from strong DLC characters to the sentiment that Street Fighter 6 is a “pay to win” experience. So, what do we make of Akuma, M. Bison, Ed, and Rashid’s powerful tournament and online performances thus far? Brian F offers some in-depth thoughts in his latest video.
The introduction of DLC characters in fighting games brought with it a tension between two poles: developing new characters that people will be excited enough to pay for and hiding the easiest tools for victory behind a paywall.
Capcom seemed to toe this line quite effectively in the first season of Street Fighter 6 as Rashid, A.K.I., and Ed all successfully attracted attention and appeared decent without being blatantly overpowered. So far so good, but fans were especially intrigued at how Capcom would handle Season 1’s final character, Akuma, who has proven to be top tier in most games he appears in.
While he’s definitely strong, Akuma’s weaknesses seemed apparent enough that he ultimately fell into an acceptably high tier position. One month later M. Bison came out, and his relatively easy execution paired with massive damage output raised a few alarms.
Meanwhile, the community discovered increasingly effective strategies with both Ed and Rashid, launching both up the tier charts (a few balance updates helped with this as well). Suddenly we have four DLC characters (three fourths of the current DLC roster) all in SF6’s top five discussion, which itself warrants some discussion.
Brian takes us on a history lesson over the last year and a half to chart the rise in effectiveness of SF6 DLC characters and to ultimately try to answer whether or not the game has a DLC creep problem. Check it out below and hit us up with your thoughts on the matter in the comments afterwards.