February 15, 2016. Street Fighter V had come out a day earlier than announced, and for many fans of the series, the wait was finally over. Thousands of eager fighters from all around the world hopped onto their newly downloaded copies of Capcom’s latest fighting game, ready to do online battle with their street fighting peers. Yet many were greeted with a rather disconcerting message:
“Disconnected from game server.”
Accompanied by a nebulous string of numbers and letters that could mean absolutely anything.
In short, most Street Fighter V players were unable to log into the game’s servers. They could still access training mode and play story mode. But they weren’t able to play others in online matches. Nor were they able to earn Fight Money, which will later be used to purchase cosmetics. The few players who miraculously could connect to the Street Fighter V servers were usually disconnected shortly after playing a single (laggy) match.
Understandably, countless players were angry at not being able to play the game for its main purpose: player vs. player combat. To be sure, the sheer number of players signing onto the game at once on release day was undoubtedly far beyond any number of individuals playing during the game’s frequent stress test betas. But to many players, faulty launch-day servers are inexcusable.
Street Fighter V director Yoshinori Ono has released an official apology, wherein he states that the Street Fighter V team is working hard on bringing their servers to full functionality.
Capcom’s SFV Server Twitter, meanwhile, is constantly posting updates on the game’s server status.
While the servers seem to have stopped disconnecting as of an update earlier today, match queue times have lengthened dramatically for many players, with some having to wait up to half an hour for single ranked match.
Server issues are but one of the many storms Capcom will have to weather in the coming months. Public reception to the game has so far been mixed. While critics and players alike enjoy the game’s base combat, others are unhappy with the lack of basic fighting game features, such as the ability to rebind keyboard keys, DirectInput controller support, menus not remembering player settings, a lobby system, and missing game modes like Trials and a full Story mode (which will be added in delayed, albeit free, content patches starting next month).
With time, Street Fighter V may flourish to become the full-fledged game that it was meant to be. For now, though, all Capcom can do is ensure that their new ship sails the angry Internet seas as smoothly as possible, one netcode fix at a time.