A few weeks ago at the end of July, July 28th specifically, Capcom finally decided to indefinitely halt the operation of their Street Fighter V beta following a string of server restarts, broken matchmaking, and overall shoddy online quality, making the following statement:

Capcom offers its sincerest apologies to everyone who participated in this first beta test. While the purpose of a beta is to work out these type of issues, it was very clear that the issues we faced were more severe than we were prepared for. After three days of testing, while we were making progress and collecting valuable data, we felt the majority of players were not having a good experience, and the best course of action would be to take the servers offline for extended maintenance. We will be postponing our first beta phase until we believe the experience is going to be a positive one for players.

So ever since then, the beta has been nonexistent, but that all changed recently. On the official Capcom blog it was announced that the beta would be returning after almost a month of tweaks and technical work. Also noted was that stress tests would be performed in various different regions over the next few days or so, but this would not halt the function of the beta or limit beta players in a noticeable way.

As noted when the game was covered a few weeks ago, this next Street Fighter will be introducing a new method of obtaining downloadable content, as well as a handful of never-before-seen characters that bring to the table entirely new styles of play. And with this new DLC distribution system, players won’t have to pay a dime for any new content so long as they are willing to put in the time to grind out the in-game currency required to purchase them. How long players should be required to grind for this sort of thing is something Capcom will be experimenting with as time goes on, and minor (even major) tweaks are bound to be implemented into the system.

Following the stress tests, Capcom stated that “We would like to reiterate that all data received during each regional stress test will help us ensure that the game performs at an optimal level.” For previous beta players

For newly interested potential beta players, I linked to the beta opt-in page above , but here it is again. If you want to be one of the beta testers, that’s where you can get started. For the rest of us, Capcom has given March of 2016 as a hopeful release date, so look forward to kicking your friends’ asses starting then!