Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama and Producer Shuhei Matsumoto were recently interviewed by Gamerbraves and shared a good deal of insight in terms of Capcom’s fighting game division’s direction and plans.
At one point, Gamerbraves asked about the potential of Nakayama and Matsumoto adding in a new mechanic to mix things up in Street Fighter 6, and though clearly on the hesitant side, the developers are indeed open to the idea.
When asked directly about the potential for new SF6 mechanics, Director Nakayama offered his answer in Japanese to Capcom’s translator.
“So, he does think about it, but maybe not so much in the near future, but maybe in the future it’s something that’s possible,” she translated. “…isn’t there already so many new mechanics? Wouldn’t it be really difficult for people to balance everything if they add more?”
As Nakayama gets at, proposing a new mechanic in Street Fighter 6 may, at first, seem rather ludicrous right now seeing as players have long noted how difficult it is to juggle the multi-faceted Drive System that’s already in place.
If such a new mechanic did indeed serve to increase mental stack, that would likely be overwhelming for a game like Street Fighter 6, but as we’ve seen in the past, such additions can actually balance the playing field out and make for an overall more engaging experience.
Indeed, in virtually every main Street Fighter entry, save for SF1, Capcom has implemented one or more new gameplay mechanics to freshen up the fight. These have historically been more defensive than offensive, suggesting that Street Fighter games tend to follow a pattern of being initially offense heavy, and need to be balanced on the mechanical level later on.
For instance, Capcom added V-Shift during the later years of Street Fighter 5 in an attempt to balance out the game’s tendency toward overwhelming offense. The Ultra Street Fighter 4 update gave players the option to delay their wake up timing so as to thwart overpowering vortex pressure, and brought Red Focus into the mix.
Going back to the days of Street Fighter 3, Guard (Red) Parry was implemented to give defenders more options during block strings, and a whole slew of mechanics were added or altered in the transition from Street Fighter Alpha 2 to 3. Finally, Street Fighter 2 eventually gave players the ability to tech/soften throws (how’s that for a defense buff?) and perform Super combos.
For those who feel Street Fighter 6 is imbalanced at the moment, especially surrounding Drive Rush and overwhelming corner control, perhaps a new, global, defensive maneuver would be just the thing to balance the scales. Admittedly it is a bit early in the game’s lifespan (we’re coming up on 17 months on November 2) and if the pattern were to be more closely followed, we wouldn’t expect such alterations for another two or so years, which does line up with Nakayama’s statement.
What do you think, though? Do you think SF6 needs additional mechanics to help balance out the Drive System and other facets of the game with particularly high gravitational pulls, or should developers focus on continuing to tweak what’s already in front of us?
For more from the SF6 developers, be sure to check out our story regarding classic fighting titles Capcom still wants to bring to modern consoles.