Street Fighter 6: An exclusive first look at the new dynamic control scheme meant to help the button master Excel

After an extended Street Fighter 6 practice session and several interviews at Capcom’s headquarters in Osaka, Japan, I was in the back room of a small sandwich shop overlooking the Higashiyokobori River. While eating my sandwich, I chatted with Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama, who was sitting next to me, enjoying his own sandwich. After covering the topics of our respective history with Street Fighter and the other games we’ve played, he asked me if I’d liked what I’ve played in Street Fighter 6 so far. are not.

I let him know the gameplay and art style is amazing and I feel the Real Time Comments feature is a great thing. revolutionary addition to the fighting genre. The director nodded with a smile until I mentioned how I didn’t feel Modern Control (simplifying the overall control scheme) was for me, but my colleague likes this idea. I think it’s a really smart move to allow players of various skill levels to join in the fun and compete against those with more experience with the Street Fighter franchise. He smirked and said, “There’s actually a third control plan.” Immediately, my interest was stimulated. At the time, he could only tell me one name for the option: Dynamic Controls.

The restaurant where the conversation happened

We returned to the Capcom office shortly after, and I started asking more questions about Dynamic Controls. After some discussion, the team took an updated build from the other side of the office so I could practice with it. Nakayama sat in front of the screen with producer Shuhei Matsumoto at his side as the two prepared gamepads for a match against each other. Matsumoto chose Dynamic Control and told me to look at his hand and compare it to the action on the screen.

To my surprise, Matsumoto placed his controller on the table in front of him and started using his index finger to tap the buttons on his face in turn. Even so, his character is using all sorts of attacks. Obviously Dynamic Controls aren’t to test your skills as a Street Fighter player but to make sure every player gets in on the fun.

“Button pusher” is sometimes seen as an insult to players who randomly press buttons on their keyboard or board in the hope that they will accidentally trigger some kind of effective attack. , but for Nakayama, that concept inspired him. “In a casual fighting game, when they [mash buttons]they just do so many things,” he said. We want something important and something that makes a difference to happen by randomly pressing buttons. “

While some initially considered Modern Controls an “easy mode” because it simplified it down to fewer buttons and inputs needed for efficiency, Capcom worked to balance the Current Controls. and Classic Controls against each other, so both compete in matches – Nakayama even thinks we’ll see some high-level competitive players using Modern Controls in the future. As a result, both Modern and Classic are available across all game modes, with no pressure from the game or the developer to “graduate” to Classic Controls after playing with Modern. However, Dynamic Controls are clearly understood to be closer to “easy mode” and are therefore only available in-game locally.

The name comes from the point of view that the AI ​​basically decides, dynamically, which attack to perform when you press the buttons on your face based on your character’s current location and situation; If a character is far away, pressing the face button can throw a projectile, while the same button can create a combo during a close-up encounter. While button crushing is a viable strategy using Dynamic Controls, strategy still plays a role, and you can still perform splits and move characters manually by use the d-pad key. After getting my hands on the controls, it’s safe to say I wouldn’t use it personally, but it’s the kind of mode that would be great playing the SNES copy of Street Fighter II Turbo with my little brother.

With these three control schemes, Street Fighter 6 feels like the most accessible and accessible entry in the franchise’s 35-year history. While I will likely always enjoy the Classic Controls thanks to my experience stretching back to my time pumping quarters into my local Street Fighter II cabinet, I’m glad more players have the option. choose to join the fun with Modern Controls and to a greater extent, Dynamic Controls.