At this point, simplified control options have been around in fighting games for decades, but Street Fighter 6 will mark the first time Capcom’s mainline series has attempted to implement such a feature, leaving many players curious as to how it will pan out.
Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama recently sat down for an interview with Game Informer where he spent a little time talking about the game’s balance and modern control type – and why it’s not just an “easy mode”.
“Competitive balance is essential,” Nakayama said via Game Informer. “It is important that we do our best. That’s the truth. But really, the answer is Modern Control Type, which is not ‘simple mode’.
If someone wants to play Modern Control Type in a competitive environment like a tournament, they should. It’s just a different path for players who want it.”
While it certainly makes sense for a lead developer to drive one of the big ideas his team is putting together, we find it harder to see that Modern Controls will have a major impact on SF6’s future tournament scene, for a few important reasons.
The way they worked in the first playable demo, Modern Controls essentially take away half of a character’s normal attacks by only including 3 buttons for them and another for performing specials without the need for movement.
“If someone wants to play Modern Control Type in a competitive environment like a tournament, they should. It’s just a different path for players who want it” – Takayuki Nakayama
The ability to perform a Shoryuken with Ryu by simply pressing forward plus triangle might be seen as a small benefit for some, but it seems players will likely have to give up the different strengths of special moves outside of overdrives.
In addition, Modern Controls currently only has slots for 4 specials, so fighters with more than this may not have access to them, even if users know the traditional input.
All of these details are subject to change ahead of the game’s release, however, as SF6 is still heavily in development and Capcom first sought external feedback on it last month.
We could very well see significant changes to try to keep modern and traditional controls on near equal footing, but it’s hard to see the simplified inputs catching on on the competitive scene as long as it means sacrificing a number of options to do so.
The developers say they hold internal competitions every day to help balance Street Fighter 6. So don’t be surprised if things work and feel a little different than what was shown in June.
You can check out the full interview between Game Informer and the SF6 leads below.