Capcom’s Street Fighter 6 had one of the most explosive opening releases of any fighting game ever put on the market, selling more than 2 million copies in little over a month and being praised both by critics as well as the hardcore player market, but the honeymoon period appears to be over for the flagship fighting game, as the grand majority of Street Fighter 6’s playerbase has started to raise issues with the way Capcom has basically neglected the game following its incredible launch, said sentiment is so widespread that Capcom has decided to announce that the third skin for 18 of the roster’s characters will be available soon.
As said before, there are many criticisms of how Capcom has handled Street Fighter 6 post-release, some are more debated than others, but the one thing everybody seems to agree on is that their negligence towards character skins is basically giving up free money, especially with summer having come and gone and the opportunity to sell the ever popular summer beach costumes popularized by Street Fighter 5 gone with them.
It seems Capcom may have overestimated the popularity of their Avatar system, as Street Fighter 6 has actually had quite a bit of customization content, just not for the actual characters. Rather, the player avatars available to wander around Battle Hub as well as World Tour are the recipients of all the costumes and outfits. With many of said costumes and outfits locked behind a battle pass and also reeking of sponsorship deals with brands like Chipotle and Onitsuka Tiger that make many members of the playerbase turn their noses to these options.
It’s also notable that during their recent announcement for costume 3, Capcom didn’t specify a time frame for when they’ll be released, which is all too similar to how they handled the last costume 3 announcement in August and went radio silent for months. It’s also important how they specified 18 characters on the Japanese account which likely means that the DLC characters released so far, AKI and Rashid, will not be receiving a third costume. All in all, the tweet just seems like appeasement for the crowd that are constantly asking why there’s no content under every tweet the Street Fighter account makes.
Capcom’s handling of Street Fighter 6’s post-launch content has been a bit less than stellar for the community, and the costume situation is just the tip of the iceberg in that regard. We can only hope that when Capcom says these costumes will come soon they truly mean it, and begin showing Street Fighter 6 the care and attention that the game and its community deserves.