Well, it finally happened - my streak of SIXTY EIGHT back-to-back weekly newsletters has been broken and, of course, the thing that did it was the release of Street Fighter 6. I have no excuse. The weeks before the release were extremely busy and I still managed to squeeze SOMETHING out in newsletter form, be it a shorter piece or perhaps something from my archive reworked a bit but last week I just fucked it all off because I was well and truly lost in the Street Fighter 6 sauce. It’s absolutely fantastic, essential even, almost certainly only to be bested in the GOTY stakes by Tears of the Kingdom and even then, that new Zelda isn’t going to be getting a look-in during the SF6 honeymoon period. It’s that good. Normally, when I break a streak in a project like this, my brain just goes into scorched Earth mode and I bin it but it was just so inevitable that Street Fighter 6 was going to be a problem, I can’t be too mad at myself for this one.

STREET FIGHTER 6: BATTLE HUB

There’s a million things I love about Street Fighter 6, most of which you can read about in my review over on GamesRadar, but it’s hard to justify getting into the real nerdy stuff on any mainstream website. Street Fighter 6 is very clearly the most accessible Street Fighter has ever been but it’s also a Street Fighter game that has three different sets of frame data to learn at its highest levels but there’s no point mentioning that when a majority of the audience don’t even know what frame data is to begin with, so you have to pick your battles, be smart with where you focus and ensure that you get your point across regardless of the things you choose to/not to talk about. That’s reviewing, folks.

The one thing I do want to go into extra detail about, however, is the Battle Hub, not because it is too complex an issue to be put into the review but because I love what it represents so much that it could easily have taken over what was already a pretty lengthy article. I LOVE the Battle Hub. I think it’s the best thing Capcom have added to the Street Fighter series since the parry. For me, it’s the beating heart of Street Fighter 6 and something I hope goes from strength to strength, evolving throughout the life of the game.

What the Battle Hub is is a online lobby, full of arcade cabinets that you can take your custom avatar to, take a seat and either challenge or wait to be challenged in a casual game of Street Fighter 6. There’s no ranking points to be won or lost, absolutely nothing on the line except your own pride. You can play as many games back to back as you wish, until someone else decides to sit down, or you can choose to spectate and watch the action. There’s some cabs towards the back of the room that allow you to play the Extreme Battle mode, which are largely unused and there’s a section where you can play classic Capcom arcade titles - Street Fighter II and Final Fight seem to be permanent fixtures with one game cycling in every day. The whole thing is very chill and there’s a surprisingly strong community vibe to it, brought on by the fact that everyone is using their own custom avatar.

The character creation tool is surprisingly powerful, letting you make everything from an accurate representation of yourself to some truly horrific eldritch monstrosities. Right now, cosmetic items like bits of clothing are best unlocked through the single player World Tour mode, which for the most part people are either still working their way through or have little interest in playing at all, so there’s a lot of default ass looking avatars cutting about but as time goes on, this will hopefully change and we’ll start to see some more variety. My guy, a lad who shares my portly disposition, wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants, high top trainers, a balaclava and a gold chain around his neck, stands out a mile and it’s really fun to have people recognise him from Twitter, or just interact with him because he looks like such a fucking goon. You can even battle each others avatars, showcasing the ridiculously broken builds you’ve created in World Tour mode. It’s a bit of fun, rather than something people are going to engage with regularly, but like a lot of Street Fighter 6, it’s a lovely extra thing that helps make up the incredible package.

You can also make up clubs, 100 strong gangs of other players that all work towards a shared points total in ranked matches to push their club up the leaderboard. You can make a daft flyer and logo, but also create a custom jersey for all the members to wear. Top Guile player (and by top, I mean literally the current number one ranked Guile in the SF6 leaderboard) imstilldadaddy has a pretty big online following and I went into a Battle Hub to find him and his ‘General’s Army’ all stood there, all wearing their uniform, all taking on each other in matches in the hub or searching for ranked games while their leader stood around taking photos of the gathered masses. It was cool to see.

Despite the relaxed nature of the Battle Hub, the best and worst part about any fighting game is that the only person you have to blame for your wins and losses is yourself, so regardless of the fact there’s nowt on the line for any player, the salt flows freely. There’s an open chat channel on screen at all times and so far, it has been a rich vein of some of the saltiest shit-talk I’ve seen publicly in quite some time. It’s beautiful. Good players complaining about the current meta (it’s been out a week, guys!) all the way to brand new scrubs kicking off about stuff they really don’t understand yet. It’s just an endless stream of beef - players calling out other players because they one and done them, chatting rubbish about someone’s dogshit internet connection or simply demanding someone take them on again for a salty runback. I absolutely love it. Now, I’m not saying I’m above it and am immune to diving head first into the salt mines - far from it - but it takes a special type of internet rage to start typing public shit into a chat channel in this time of social media and instant capture via screenshots and video. EVERYONE is getting their knickers in a twist and then getting caught out in 4K over on something like Scrubquotes.

To change things up, after a few games, I like to head over to the classic cabinets and play a few old Capcom games. It appears that there’s a total of fifteen games that are available and three are playable each day. The selection has been great so far, with some absolute belters in SonSon, Puzzle Fighter and Side Arms appearing alongside obvious big hitters Street Fighter II and Final Fight, which so far have been available every day. As a big fan of retro arcade stuff and ESPECIALLY Capcom’s 80s and 90s output, this is a lovely little bonus. You can also play these in offline multiplayer - sync up a second pad and you’re off - but right now you can’t play them with other people online, probably for technical reasons but I’d be surprised if this isn’t something they add in a future update for an easy win.

Another great thing I saw in the Battle Hub is two top players - Broski and Angrybird - were running a set on their streams whilst sat at a cabinet. Loads of people gathered around to watch and, brilliantly, no one interrupted. I don’t expect other people to know who exactly is a top player and anyone in that hub could’ve requested to sit down and play at any point, down to ignorance or just because they fancied being a dickhead and disrupting the on-stream set but - get this - no one did. People either carried on about their business OR chose to spectate the set. Most top players or big streamers currently sit in training mode whilst they queue for Ranked matches - which to be fair is probably the best way to do things if you’re trying to improve - but it is a bit of a shame they don’t pop their heads into the Battle Hub to rub shoulders with their communities a bit more.

The area of the greatest potential is the big screen at the back of the Battle Hub that has loads of stools in front of. If you sit on one of the stools, it makes the screen go full screen and you can view what is currently on rotation. For now, it’s a load of rubbish - it’s the intro sequence to the game, a few information slides on players currently on winning streaks or who are high in the leaderboards and an advert for some Street Fighter themed trainers - but surely this is where Capcom can beam in their Capcom Pro Tour events, kicking off this August with Evo 2023. I’m all in on watching Street Fighter, as it is an incredibly exciting watch whether in-person or via a stream but not everyone is aware of how the rich history of competitive Street Fighter rivals that of the in-game tales of Ryu and his mates. It might not be something these new players actively seek out but if you bring it to them, it might be what it takes to get them hooked. Hell, you might see players who were recently wandering around the very same Battle Hub as yourself up on the big screen, competing for a chance at the Pro Tour’s $1 million prize.

Thing is, fighting games are built around the community. The arcade scene which gave birth to competitive fighting games is, unfortunately, rapidly becoming a thing of the past and online play is taking over, even more so post-pandemic. Ask anyone who considers themselves part of the fighting game community, however, what the best thing about playing a fighting game is and the response you’ll get is almost always playing in person, be it with pals on a couch, at your nearest local event or as part of a big, proper tournament. That will never change and will never go away but online play has to be embraced as a major part of things in the current landscape and I just find the Battle Hub to be a way of bridging the gap between attending an in-person event and playing online in Ranked matches. It adds a bit of personality and life to what will be an endless grind for many of us, slowly improving and climbing up the ranks. I hope Capcom keep this part of Street Fighter 6 alive and fresh, updating the things you can do in the hub, organising online events and the like. Throw in a few new arcade titles from time to time too! Just give people a reason to show their virtual face from time to time, sit down at a cab and get some ggs in. That’s what it is all about, at the end of the day, whether the person is next to you or in the next town.

THANKS FOR READING.

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