

This Drive Gauge starts at full and refills over the course of a match and can be used to enhance certain attacks to either deal extra damage or extend their combo, enter a parry state, or most importantly execute a Drive Impact. This can lead to certain combo strings being impossible to pull off, though most of these combos can only be pulled off by the most skilled players outside of training mode anyways, or at least in my case.Īnother element added into Street Fighter 6 that can serve as both a newcomer boon as well as a punishment is the Drive System. During my time with the closed beta I found that a Modern Control Ken handled fairly similarly to his Classic counterpart but Juri, while incredibly flashy with Modern controls, lacked a number of moves if she was not being utilized as a Classic fighter. That being said, while Modern Controls do make things easier they are also a double-edged sword as it does limit what some fighters are capable of unleashing on their opponents. This is thanks to Modern controls simplifying things a bit allowing for an easier time to hold your own against tougher opponents while also giving players some small access to auto combos at the expense of the Drive Gauge. Modern controls are automatically selected for every fighter and offer a large number of more convenient options for less dextrous or skilled players to still try and pull of flashy moves. Speaking of viable, Street Fighter 6 has offered a number of options that make the game a bit more approachable to newcomers and this comes with the inclusion of a new control scheme. This works fairly well as it allows for matches to start quickly without worrying about players needing to swap characters but I can see it possibly changing in the full release as more characters are added and the possibility for hard counters being a more viable option.
STREET FIGHTER 6 RELEASE SERIES
In fact, there is even a fun little option to make faces at your opponent using your chosen character while the matches load up, which is incredibly fast on the Series X. In interesting fashion, the matchmaking screen also serves as the menu where you can select the fighter you wish to use in every match as well as customize their “Here Comes a New Challenger ” intro screen. For those who want to take on ranked matches or simply queue up for player matches, this is done through a menu system that will then search for matches while players walk around the hub, though interacting with anything will cancel the matchmaking.

The simplest method was simply go to one of the many arcade machines scattered throughout the hub and either choose to sit down on my own and wait for others, giving myself a desperate need to practice a bit against an AI dummy and try and learn how various moves worked in this latest release in the meantime, or sit down where someone else is already waiting and fighting against them. There were a number of ways that I could choose to participate in fights against other players online.

Initially players are only able to wear the most basic of outfits for their fighter but by completing daily and overall challenges various fighter tickets could be used to purchase extra pieces of clothing and cosmetic pieces. Players can create all different manner of characters ranging from standard looking humans to freakish abominations, the latter of which happened to populate most lobbies with their character models bulging and shrinking to the maximum. First, of course, I was prompted to create an avatar that would be used to roam around the hub and the amount of customization options for characters is quite extensive. Over this past weekend I had a chance to participate in the most recent closed beta test for Street Fighter 6, giving a solid look at most of what players can expect when entering into the Battle Hub lobbies and looking to fight against others online.
STREET FIGHTER 6 RELEASE PC
Platforms: Xbox Series X/S (Previewed), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC
