Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

At least two World Warrior Final events have been postponed following the discovery of a game-breaking bug in Street Fighter 6.

Both the US/Canada West and Brazil World Warrior Finals were slated to play out on Wednesday, but have been delayed with no finalized date as of yet. To make matters worse, eight more World Tour Final events are slated to play out this weekend.

The game-breaking bug removes the ability for players to buffer inputs as their character wakes up (stands after being knocked down) should their opponent Perfect Parry and attack and punish with a sequence that knocks down.

This effectively grants a massive advantage to the aggressor in such scenarios, and instantly turns Perfect Parry into an obviously overpowered tool.

Level Up and BRKumite, the respective tournament organizers of the US/Canada West and Brazil events, shared the following posts on X Wednesday morning:

IMPORTANT WNF X WW2024 REGIONAL FINAL UPDATE

WNF x WW2024 Regional Final scheduled for tonight is postponed to a later date due to a non intended system mechanic bug in SF6 which can change the outcome of a match.

Tournament integrity is a priority for us so all players can… pic.twitter.com/QzieHA4o2t

— level | up (@levelupseries) December 4, 2024

BR Kumite World Warrior adiado!
Em breve será anunciado a nova data do evento. pic.twitter.com/LTNlhsny72

— Ryoran @BRKumite (@ryoran) December 4, 2024

If Capcom is not able to fix this issue by the weekend they will likely have to postpone eight additional events as the World Warrior Finals for China, Taiwan/HongKong Macau, Mexico, Europe Northeast, Middle East, and US Midwest are scheduled for Saturday, December 7 while France/Monaco and Europe West are slated for Sunday, December 8.

We have yet to see any messaging from the tournament organizers responsible for running those events, but assume similar postponements will take place should Capcom take longer than three days to fix the Perfect Parry bug.

This all comes thanks to a recent balance patch that changes all 24 playable characters on both individual and global levels.

Though there was much anticipation for this patch, some in the community questioned the decision by Capcom to change Street Fighter 6 so significantly in the middle of the final stretch of their own Pro Tour.

There are a total of 24 World Warrior Finals playing out across the globe over the course of multiple weeks. This update patch was scheduled to release in the midst of this leg of the Pro Tour, meaning about half of the WW Finals were scheduled before and half scheduled after the patch.

The fact that character balance would be different for various regions is, alone, reason enough for more competitively-minded fans not to work this way, but the fact that the patch brought with it a game-breaking bug makes for a much worse-case scenario.

It’s a bit wild to think that The King of Fighters 15 is already approaching its third anniversary, but the game also looks set to be receiving what may be its final pieces of new content.

SNK just released the official gameplay trailers for Vice and Mature in KOF15, showcasing what the duo looks like in action for the first time, and they won’t be coming alone.

After getting the femme fatales’ battle intros and special interactions with each other, the ladies come in to show off what they’ve been cooking up, and fans are probably going to be pretty happy.

Mature of course has her signature slashing swipes and ability to explode you in the corner while Vice brings back her arm whips and grabs.

And both can also do potentially more than ever before with the constant access to EX specials and new tools too.

Mature (Voice: Yu Shimamura) – Once a member of the Hakkesshu, Mature fights with elegance and precision, using razor-sharp strikes to devastate her enemies. Her coldhearted demeanor sets her apart from her counterpart.

Vice (VA: Mayumi Saco) – Hiding brutal strength behind her frail appearance, Vice is all about raw power and ruthless throws. Her fascination with Iori Yagami makes her story even more intriguing.

Vice and Mature are set to drop on Thursday, December 12.

They’ll be coming as a package deal for $9.99 USD.

On top of that, SNK is also set to release the new Version 2.40 update to KOF15 that should prove to be a big one.

The developers confirm all characters will be receiving balance adjustments / changes next week too, which could well end up being the last for the game.

They haven’t stated KOF is complete after Vice and Mature, but there’s something else that implies it to likely be the case.

Also on December 12, The King of Fighters 15: Ultimate Edition is hitting storefronts offering the base game and all DLC characters plus costumes including Vice and Mature for $59.99 while the base price will be set at $29.99.

All that combined with Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves dropping next April suggests KOF’s content is complete unless they give us one more special drop like these two ladies.

King of Fighters certainly isn’t disappearing of course, however, with the SNK World Championships next year as well as being featured as a mainstage title for Evo Japan 2025.

You can check out the official trailer and screenshots for Vice and Mature below.

Click images for larger versions

Update: This story is being updated with live results as they occur.

The finals of this year’s Tekken World Tour, the inaugural one for Tekken 8, are finally upon us and they’ll be happening in Tokyo, Japan for the first time.

Players participating in the finals are TM|Arslan Ash, KDF|Ulsan, KDF|Mulgold, FATE|Atif, Navi|Kkokkoma, Navi|AK, Ashes|TheJon, Liquid|Shadow20z, THY|Chikurin, Falcons|JoKa, VARREL|Rangchu, Dragons|Raef, DRX|Chanel, KDF|CBM, ZETA|Double, Yamasa|Nobi, Falcons|Farzeen, DRX|LowHigh, FATE|Jodd, Leemishima, Talon|Book, KDF|Meo-IL, Falcons|TheSamBrother, FATE|Numan Ch, E-spopia|Shounen, NYCT|FearOfSilence, HG|DanielMado, DivineExorcist4, HDG|Noel, ME|Tejan, Kwstakys, Shaoling, Yondaime, Deadakari and Allidar, and of course the Last Chance Qualifier will be stacked through the roof as well.

This is a four-day event with a particular format. First of all, the players who qualified through the Global Leaderboard are divided into four Round Robin groups where the top two placers in each group advance to the winner’s side of the finals bracket.

Next, the players who qualified through the Regional Leaderboard will battle it out against each other in three Round Robin groups where the top two placers in each group advance to the loser’s side of the finals bracket.

After these 14 out of 16 slots have been decided, the Last Chance Qualifier opens up (and anyone eliminated in the Group Stage will now be eligible to enter this qualifier) and the top two placers in this take the last two spots in the loser’s side of the finals bracket, which will then commence on the final day in a double elimination format.

Streaming is being done at Tekken.

It’s been well over a decade since Bleach received an actual fighter on consoles, let alone any video games, but there’s a big return not too far off in the distance.

Bandai Namco dropped a new trailer for Bleach Rebirth of Souls today, which reveals the game’s release date as well as the Season Pass and pre-order bonuses.

As confirmed in the trailer, the new Bleach fighter is slated to releease on March 21, 2025 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Moreover, Rebirth of Souls will receive a Season Pass as well that contains four more playable characters, one-week early access for them and a selection of Soul Crystals.

Since the new game really only appears to cover Bleach’s story through the end of the Arrancar arc, this does have many wondering if the DLC will be used to bring Thousand Year Blood War arc with the Quincies to go with the ongoing anime hype.

There’s obviously no Ywatch or any Sternritters yet, so those would obviously be prime candidates.

Speaking of the final run of the series, those who pre-order Rebirth of Souls will get Thousand-Year Blood War costumes for Toshiro Hitsugaya and Yoruichi Shihoin.

There’s also going to be more available as likely DLC too with a Thousand-Year Blood War Costume Set confirmed as part of the Ultimate Edition containing at least Byakuya Kuchiki and Rangiku Matsumoto.

It seems we still have at least two more huge character trailers before launch too with teasers for Sosuke Aizen and Shigekuni Genryusai Yamamoto briefly shown at the end here.

Although it may look lilke a typical anime arena fighter at the surface, Rebirth of Souls appears as though it has more going on in terms of gameplay and is also being handled by the developers of the Battle Arena Toshinden games, Tamsoft.

We previously took a look at Rebirth of Souls’ opening movie too, which sounds way too much like Linkin Park.

You can check out the new trailer for the upcoming Bleach game below.

And nine more events scheduled before the end of the week

Street Fighter 6 got a much-anticipated update patch on Sunday that tweaked tons of characters and re-balanced the game, but it seems said patch also brought with it a bug that basically breaks the game.

This bug causes players to lose the ability to buffer attacks as they stand up after being knocked down in certain situations, and with two Capcom Pro Tour World Warrior finals slated to play out later today (North America West and Brazil) Capcom would do well to attend to this hiccup as soon as humanly possible. Broski has put together a video showing exactly how this bug works, and you can view it below.

If you played earlier Street Fighter games (especially 1 and 2) you’ll notice that it feels a lot harder to consistently get special moves to come out. The reason it’s so much easier in more modern games is because developers implemented shortcuts and wider buffer windows during which you can input said commands.

In other words, you can dial in the input for a super or special attack while your character is in the “wake up” animation (the sequence in which they go from being knocked down to standing again) and the game will read this, hold the input for a few extra frames while the animation completes, and then cause your character to execute the move.

Players rely on buffers constantly now as developers have been ever widening their windows, but the latest Street Fighter 6 bug causes the wake up buffer window to completely disappear after a particular sequence.

This bug is triggered by a relatively common sequence: Perfect Parry into a knock down. The character who is knocked down after being Perfect Parried will curiously lose the buffer window for wake up attacks.

This means that the aggressor has an immense advantage, as the defender must time their wake up reversal to come out manually on the frame they stand up.

This is already rough, but in Street Fighter 6 there are mechanics like Drive Impact that make things even worse. If an aggressor goes for a Drive Impact on their opponent’s wake up after activated this bug, for instance, the defender will need to input their DI on the exact frame they wake up, or they’ll be completely vulnerable to the incoming Impact.

You can see it all in action via Broski’s video below. We’ll be on the lookout to see if Capcom has an emergency update for this, or plans to delay the handful of World Warrior Finals that are scheduled in the coming days (two on Wednesday, seven more are slated for Saturday, and another two on Sunday).

Given Capcom was willing to implement a balance patch in the middle of their own CPT Finals events, however, may suggest that kosher competitive play is not their utmost priority.

There was a global change made to Perfect Parry in the patch, “If a multi-hit attack is Perfect Parried, it can no longer be canceled from the 2nd attack and on.” While it’s not obvious how this would translate to the bug that has come to fruition, said bug is most likely an unintended results of developers’ tampering with this part of the game.

Masahiro Sakurai always manages to outdo himself by cramming more and more content into every entry of the Super Smash Bros. franchise. Hilariously enough, Sakurai recently felt the need to actually apologize to fans due to him taking up so much of their time with the Super Smash Bros. series.

The idea of “100% completion” for any of the iterations in the series past the first one may come across as being crazy to some people. Indeed, this task manages to become more gargantuan the further along into the series you go.

It would seem that Nathaniel Bandy decided to take this challenge a few steps further. Rather than just 100% completing one game in the Super Smash Bros. series, he’s going to unlock everything in all of them.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, Nathaniel Bandy is making it a point to do this in just two weeks. This will prove to be a race against time since each game becomes exponentially more time consuming to 100% complete than the last.

Fortunately, Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 ends up not presenting too much of a problem since it was the first entry in the series. Nathaniel Bandy was able to finish this game in about three hours.

Just to give an idea on how insane this task gets, Super Smash Bros. Melee ended up taking nearly 39 hours. Each game after this only became even more grueling of an experience.

For just Super Smash Bros. Melee, Nathaniel Bandy unlocked all 11 secret fighters, unlocked 11 hidden stages, unlocked All-Star mode, unlocked score display, unlocked random stage select, revealed Mew and Celebi from Pokéballs, unlocked sound test, unlocked alternate music, collect all 291 trophies, and beat all 51 Event Matches. Fortunately, it was not required to get all of the “achievements” in Super Smash Bros. Melee to complete this challenge since one of these achievements required 1,000,000 matches getting played.

Ultimately, this challenge ended up really pushing Nathaniel Bandy by the end since 100% completing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s World of Light mode by itself took him nearly two days. Check it all out in the video below:

Desk shows us what the secret boss character can do

Alongside the latest Street Fighter 6 balance update, which introduced new changes for every character on the roster, Capcom also launched a new event in the Battle Hub that allows you to fight against a super-powered, Psycho-powered version of M. Bison. This challenging foe is known as “SiRN Bison,” and with this event Capcom went the extra mile and added a secret boss version of Bison to the actual playable version of the character.

Like Akuma before him, M. Bison has a hidden “Shin Bison” form that can be accessed by completing an impossible (in a real match) set of criteria, and when it’s done properly, you gain access to several new ultra powerful tools. Well, combo master Desk has gotten his hands on Shin Bison and has now released a full-on showcase for the playable boss that demonstrates just how insane this version actually is.

Just to recap, in order to access Shin Bison in a real match one must first implant a Psycho Mine on the opponent by using his Backfist Combo special move. Once that’s done, you’ll have to perform Bison’s forward taunt in its entirety, and once he finishes the countdown and the mine explodes, you will have your Shin Bison locked and loaded.

Should your opponent allow you the time and opportunity to set this up (no one would ever do that in a real match), then you can pull off some of the crazy stuff Desk does here in his latest video.

From the jump, Desk begins this showcase by perfect parrying two hits of Jamie’s breakdancin’ level 1 super before teleporting to the other side of him. Because Desk is… Desk, he continues this sequence by teleporting to his original place on screen and continues perfect parrying the super before teleporting behind Jamie once again and landing a big combo of his own.

One of the main Shin Bison abilities that Desk puts heavily on display here is his invincible reversal. Using a quick burst of Psycho energy, Bison blows through literally everything that’s thrown at him, and because this absolutely bonkers reversal is so fast, we see it used to make supers completely whiff and get punished, used to stop normals in neutral dead in their tracks, and much more.

There are some really cool set ups and devastating combos to behold here, so be sure to check out this Shin Bison showcase below.

Iconic horror movie slasher from the Scream franchise, Ghostface, is Mortal Kombat 1’s latest DLC fighter, and with their release was saw another special bit of content stemming from the masked killer that fans would surely enjoy having.

A special Ghostface voice in-game announcer was being given as a reward for the top 5% of points earners in the Towers of Time for a short period, but naturally, not everyone was able to acquire it. Fear not, Ghostface fans, as NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. have now made this special announcer available for everyone via the game’s premium shop.

Instead of being an exclusive reward, the Ghostface announcer can be purchased for 1,000 Dragon Krystals. This will essentially run you roughly $10 USD as the cheapest Krystals option is 500 for $4.99 and you’ll need two of them to unlock this creepy slasher voice.

Speaking of voices, Ghostface’s in Mortal Kombat 1 is none other than Roger L. Jackson, who reprises his role in the legendary violent fighting game. Jackson voiced the original Ghostface throughout the film series and is iconic in the horror movie genre, so this is certainly a very nice treat for Scream fans.

In addition to Ghostface’s announcer, players can also currently purchase a Mileena announcer to have her providing the voice over for various menu options, the character select screen, and more. Mileena’s will also run you 1,000 Dragon Krystals.

Twitter user 4thSnake shared a clip on the social media platform that runs through Ghostface announcing all of the characters on the main roster’s names. As we can hear from the footage (and as explained by the uploader), Ghostface has two different variations in how he says everyone’s names.

I managed to get Top 5% in Race Against Time, so here’s the Ghostface announcer saying everyone’s names. He has two deliveries per characters, which seem to have two mostly consistent tones across all of them. Shame there are no horror film nicknames. pic.twitter.com/uZRCyJGC6R

— The4thSnake (@4thSnake) December 3, 2024

Mortal Kombat 1 is a little over half way through its latest Kombat Pack at this point in time. The Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns expansion added the first three fighters of the current wave of DLC in Sektor, Cyrax, and Noob Saibot all at once when the expansion dropped, and the three special guests are scheduled to follow.

Ghostface is the first of the latter half to be released, and after them we’ll see Terminator 2’s main villain T-1000 and Conan the Barbarian join Mortal Kombat 1’s main roster of fighters. At this time, no additional DLC Kameo Fighters have been announced for this wave of DLC.

This all comes just a year after the corporation’s terrible handling of Them’s Fightin’ Herds

Licensed fighting games based on popular anime and cartoons used to be all the rage, but although they’ve largely disappeared outside of Arc System Works and platform fighters like MultiVersus, there looked to be a big new one on the horizon.

That appears to no longer be the case, however, with an Avatar: The Last Airbender fighting game canceled by Maximum Entertainment.

The Avatar fighting game was only just announced this past February by Maximum as part of the corporation’s 2024 roadmap and one of their big new projects in the works.

“Finally, we are thrilled to announce that we have entered into a partnership with Paramount Consumer Products to develop a competitive multiplayer fighting game set in the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe,” the CEO, Christina Seelye, said.

Despite her promise of them having “much more to share on this game in the future” and giving Avatar a 2025 early access launch window, it doesn’t look like the game is happening at all anymore.

This comes in Maximum’s recent quarterly financial report where they revealed their net sales were down 32% year over year for the quarter while the company’s operating expenses rose about 35%.

That included a write-down for canceled projects and underperforming launch titles.

Among those were Avatar and at least two other projects.

“The write-down is a result of impairment test during the quarter on games and includes canceled projects and underperforming launched titles,” reads the financial report. “Of the 13.2 MEUR write-down amount 9 MEUR canceled titles Mudfest, Project Velos and Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

No other mention is made of popular animated series featuring Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko, Toph and dozens of other memorable characters that could make a very interesting fighting game roster.

Between that announcement and this apparent cancelation, it seems no footage was ever shown off of the Avatar game in action, so we don’t even know what kind of title it would have been.

Maximum described it as a “competitive multiplayer fighting game,” which would be a rather odd way to talk about a traditional fighter, so that left a lot of questions as to what Avatar would have looked like.

The Last Airbender could have been a traditional 2D or 3D fighter, but there’s also a strong chance it would have dipped more into the arena fighter category.

With a focus on competitive gameplay, Maximum could have been looking to other titles like Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT to expand into team-based content.

We may never know the answer to that now or who even was actually developing Avatar.

Many fighting game fans were also wary about the initial announcement because of Maximum’s involvement.

Just months before the reveal, Maximum had ended active development and canceled the Story Mode promised for Them’s Fightin’ Herds, which led to backlash and calls for refunds.

Mind you, this Story Mode was a funded stretch goal for Them’s Fightin’ Herds’ crowdfunding campaign years before Maximum was ever in the picture.

The corporation then effectively laid off the entire development team at Mane6 before the final two DLC characters were completed.

This led to the game’s last fighters releasing in an absurdly busted state that took months to “fix,” which didn’t even patch out all of the issues.

Thus, Them’s Fightin’ Herds went out on a very sour note after years of progress and a built-up dedicated community of players and fans left with broken promises along with a team of developers left devastated they had to leave what brought them together in such a state.

So expectations around the fighting game community weren’t very high and for apparently good reason.

Avatar is a series that deserves good video games and good fighting games, but it’s had a surprisingly rough track record outside of maybe the Platinum Legend of Korra game, which you can’t even buy anymore.

And then there’s Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth that lives on with a claim to fame simply because players could unlock all 1,000 achievement points in mere minutes on the Xbox 360.

This project is not related to the other Avatar game in development by Saber Interactive said to be a AAA action-RPG and the biggest in the franchise’s history, so all hope is not lost after this cancelation, the Netflix live-action series and alleged new series leaks popping up online currently.

If you truly want to knock heads with Aang, Korra, Azula, and Zuko, your best choice remains Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.