Fighting games, you’ve changed man. YOU’VE CHANGED. It used to be that a fighting game would release with everything that it needed in the first week. A bunch of characters, a dozen stages and maybe an extra game mode or two. And you’d be done. These days, the system is massively different. It’s very much a modular sense of development, with game characters and stages being inserted into a fisticuffs simulator after launch.
Sometimes its good. Most of the time, it’s bad, thanks to exorbitantly stupid season passes and various other bits of DLC. Street Fighter V seems to have a different idea on how to handle this kind of market however. Yes, you can buy the characters that’ll be introduced after the game has launched. Or you can earn them, an idea that’ll sit well with the type of folks who play Street Fighter religiously.
And it’s ideas like that, which will keep Street Fighter V on track for half a decade. That’s the word according to the most-loved producer around, as Yoshi Ono explained to Eurogamer, detailing how Street Fighter V’s 16-character roster would catch up to Street Fighter IV’s locker room of 44 brawlers which was built up over time:
A lot of it will depend on once the game’s out in the wild, and if the model we make comes to fruition and I can be proven right about it being the right choice. Simple maths suggests it’d take five years to get to the roster of Street Fighter 4, and we want to keep the game going for that amount of time.
We want to support it as long as we can, we honestly will have to see – we don’t know anymore than anyone else does how it’s going to turn out next February, once we do this completely new way of doing things.
And that all ties into the microtransaction setup for Street Fighter V, which will be geared towards keeping players engaged, as Ono explained:
I think, definitely – and it comes down to our philosophy. We’re trying to reward players who stay engaged with the game, and we have respect for our competitive players and we’re making sure that everything that can impact the outcome of a match needs to be earnable with in-game fight money.
Microtransactions can be perceived quite negatively, but this time around it’s much more player friendly – players have more choice about what they want, previously it was bundled in one pack and now you can pick and choose what you want to work towards and get that content for free.
Street Fighter V is out next year February. Geoff will most likely have enough fighter cash saved up in the bank, when he uses me as a cash-cow training dummy.
Last Updated: November 23, 2015
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 23, 2015 at 14:03
You know who else had 5-year plans? Communists.
Hammersteyn
November 23, 2015 at 14:12
LOL Stalin. Such a majestic mustache. Learned all about it in high school. Not sure why they thought it was useful knowledge
Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja
November 23, 2015 at 14:23
While technically, you spelled it correctly (American way), I expected you to at least honour it by spelling it in the more gentlemanly way
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:26
2016!
Hammersteyn
November 23, 2015 at 14:31
2016!
https://soundcloud.com/wieslawa/kool-and-the-gang-celebrate-1
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:32
hahahahahahahahaha
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:26
Had? Have 😛
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 23, 2015 at 14:34
What would you know about the red menace? Oh…
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:36
http://i.imgur.com/sVNBsCJ.gif
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 23, 2015 at 14:39
I thought of you while watching Jessica Jones this weekend. Particularly the scene in episode 3 where we get to meet Kilgrave for the first time & he’s giving colour commentary on a rugby match. 😉
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:41
HAHAHA! It is a brilliant series eh? Only watched the first ep but have the others waiting for me.
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 23, 2015 at 14:44
I dig it. Very different from the other superhero series, slower & more thinky compared to the usual punch all the things.
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:48
Also more intense if you ask me, I mean that last scene in the first ep, fuuuuck. We seeing you this Sat or are you shopping, doing your hair?
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 23, 2015 at 14:52
It takes a few episodes to really get going. I can do all 3!
RinceThis
November 23, 2015 at 14:53
HAHA! Cabbage made a particular request to meet you on Saturday. Not sure what that was about… 0_O But I’d come prepared, maybe with a garden shovel or something…
Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja
November 23, 2015 at 14:08
Will that include NOT being a crappy game?
Hammersteyn
November 23, 2015 at 14:11
So did Stalin. True story
James Anderton
November 23, 2015 at 14:18
If its anything like Destiny’s 10 years plan, we’re in for a treat!
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-_-
Hammersteyn
November 23, 2015 at 14:21
LOL! This is true
Original Heretic
November 23, 2015 at 14:34
I never have enough fingers to play these games. Or am I supposed to use my toes as well?!
Hammersteyn
November 23, 2015 at 14:35
Spam Hadoken. Winning!
The D
November 23, 2015 at 15:02
I should have made the headline “Street Fighter V has a V-year plan”, now that I think about it.
Swinny UK
November 29, 2015 at 11:23
This isn’t a bad thing. Maybe to the casual player who intends on buying the game on launch day and being done with it in a weekend, maybe to them they can’t see the benefits of this 5 Year Plan.
But to those of us who want to play the game competitively, well, in order to become competitive, it’s a massive time investment. Take for example Guilty Gear XRD, I spent 6 months becoming competitive in that game, and after all of that work, the online community pretty much died, and my time was wasted.
With Street Fighter though, the game will survive for a long time, so all of the work that I put in to become competitive will be rewarded with regular new content and an active community of players for years to come.
So whenever anybody complains about the way Street Fighter games are supported, I urge you to look at it from the perspective of the people who actually play the game past the first month of release.