November online character usage stats for ranked games of Street Fighter 6 just dropped from Capcom headquarters, and while we are interested to see how newest character Terry Bogard is faring here in his second full month, we’d also like to talk about the fact that one of the game’s 24 characters is getting more than 12.5% of the attention across all users.
You may already have an idea of who this particular fighter is, but you’ll have to continue beyond the jump to see for sure. We will say that, while they are easily the most prominent among all online players, the Modern Controls corner of Street Fighter 6 is a substantially different experience.
Since he released back in May of 2024, Akuma has been the most popular pick in Street Fighter 6. This surprises very few, as the beloved Street Fighter icon has long been preferred by many due to his recognizable appearance, adherence to the basic Street Fighter fighting style (he’s relatively similar to Ryu), and because he’s so strong so often.
Impressively, Akuma took the top spot in his limited first month run (he was only around for the final week in May and he still overtook Ken by over 4%) and has not yielded it since. Both M. Bison and Terry Bogard (the two DLC additions since Akuma) got close to dethroning the demon king, but neither were successful.
Terry came extremely close last month (October) as he was runner up by a mere 0.3%, but Mr. Bogard’s drastic 5.4% fall to ninth place in November suggests he’s past his popularity peak. Outside of newcomer anomalies, Akuma has been steadily gaining ground in his first place standing as the November numbers have him over second place Ken by more than 3%.
That disparity grows to 6.152% when you click over to the “Classic” filter to show preferences of players who use the traditional Street Fighter button layout, as Akuma boasts 14.942% of the attention amongst all Classic users.
Akuma is the consistent top dog across the three top online ranks (Platinum, Diamond, and Master) as well as the “All” category. When it comes to Classic Controls, he boasts these same positions plus he picks up Bronze, Silver, and Gold, leaving only the Rookie and Iron categories to be conquered (he’s top 5 in both).
It’s in Modern Controls, SF6’s simplified control scheme for accessibility purposes, that things take a drastic change. Not only is Akuma not the most popular character in any of the Modern Control ranks, he doesn’t crack top five in any of them.
While it’s surely true that some characters can take more effective advantage of Modern’s simplified controls, Akuma clearly does not resonate with this player group. Thanks to this truth, the Street Fighter 6 experience is obviously quite different, at least on paper, when it comes to the online ventures.
You can view the top 10 placings for each of the nine online SF6 categories via the gallery below. These numbers incorporate all control types, but you can explore the stats in even greater detail by heading over to Buckler’s Bootcamp.
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