It is probably a good day to be a Street Fighter fan. Only about a week after Capcom’s Street Fighter 6 received its yearly balance patch, which brought Akuma as well as a bevy of other fun changes and events for the playerbase most importantly the aforementioned balance in the form of nerfs and buffs to various characters, possibly the biggest news which has gone under the radar so far is the declaration from Capcom’s fighting game director and producer that balance patches would come more than once a year.
The full interview can be found here:
Season 1 of Street Fighter 6 wasn’t exactly the most exciting game in the world. The meta had very much stagnated only a few months into its duration and while new tech was discovered occasionally it was very evident what the competitive scene would look like very early on. More frequent balance changes serve to mix things up occasionally, though these things do come at a cost. It takes a lot of time and effort for players hoping to keep up with the “meta” to learn what’s new for characters, and more frequent changes could have the side effect of alienating players who just don’t want to learn that Ryu’s forward heavy punch is +3 instead of +1 now, or whatever unique punishes come with new setups and whatnot.
That’s not to say this is bad, as stated, Street Fighter 6 had a problem with very linear gameplay and a stagnant meta, so the occasional change up could be a smart decision to keep the game fresh going forward, but this is a very delicate balancing act that Capcom is going to have to strike.
But not everything is competitive! People have generally liked the SiRN Akuma event in the Battle Hub, and more Giant Attack events like this are almost definitely coming for the casual audience. Alongside this may come new colors/versus screens/costumes, maybe even costumes for the actual characters!