Unrest has been brewing within the Street Fighter community as of late. For the most part, this can be attributed to the delay in Ibuki’s release (not to mention Capcom Japan pointing fingers at the USA branch for the issue). Knowing that they had done poorly in the public eye, Capcom USA swore to increase visibility and communication to its fanbase, and it’s starting to look like they may have meant it.
The details for the June Street Fighter V update are here, so let’s take a peek and see how it’s looking.
A Shadow Falls
Way back to before Street Fighter V’s launch, consumers were told of a cinematic story mode coming in June. Well, it would seem that they have been able to keep up with that part of the schedule at least. According to Capcom, the cinematic story mode, titled “A Shadow Falls”, will be free of charge and last around three or four hours. In addition, all six DLC characters will be playable within this story, which means that Balrog, Juri, and Urien will all be making their gameplay debut in this mode.
The Story’s details are as follows:
The Street Fighter V Cinematic Story Expansion, “A Shadow Falls,” depicts the ultimate battle between the evil Shadaloo organization and the heroic World Warriors who rise up against them. Seven “Black Moons” are deployed by Shadaloo, granting M. Bison unimaginable power and enveloping the earth in total darkness. Seeing the moons mysteriously appear in the sky, Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li embark on an epic journey around the world to retrieve fragment pieces that are the key to stopping the “Black Moons” before it’s too late. Along the way, they encounter the rest of the World Warriors, each of whom have their own agendas and motivations in mind. The final battle between good and evil begins now… who will RISE UP?
Finally, though there has not been any explicit detail to how this mode will function, the presence of two difficulty modes means that it will likely play something like the later Netherrealm Studios games with fights breaking up the cinematic experience rather than like Guilty Gear Xrd, where the story is a single cut scene with no gameplay.
Dolla, Dolla Bills
In a strange twist, it seems that Capcom has entirely given up on zenny, Street Fighter V‘s premium currency. Rather, all microtransactions will be done through PSN and Steam.
This does not bode well for certain people overseas, as certain special editions of SFV in other regions included a set amount of zenny as one of that edition’s features.
Since a real-money option will be available at the end of the month, Guile and Alex will no longer be available free of charge.
Aside from that, Capcom has provided pricing for various items in the store.
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Odds and ends
Other than these two points, there are a couple more items in this update. First off, battle costumes will become available with PSN/Steam-based transactions being enabled. Furthermore, story mode costumes will also be made purchaseable with real money without needing to have finished that character’s story mode.
Of course, Ibuki is still slated for this month as well, you can find more information on our favorite high school kunoichi here.
Looking forward
Lastly, keeping to their word about visibility, Capcom talked about content currently being worked on. Daily challenges (or “targets” as they are going to be named) are still being tuned and will function as an additional method to gain fight money. In addition, single player modes (specifically Extra battle and Vs. CPU) are in the works.
That’s about it. It certainly does seem that Capcom is at least making an effort, but somehow it’s starting to feel like this may not do the wonders for PR that they’re hoping it will. Only time will tell though.
