Hiya!

It’s been a while since Capcom gave us the first full trailer to Street Fighter 6. Ever since then, they’ve been slowly dripping out (and possibly accidentally leaked) new details about the game. They’ve already shown us a couple of characters who are going to be joining the roster and even had let some notable pro players get their hands on Ryu, Ken, Jamie and Luke already. Capcom also went into great detail on the Drive system, Street Fighter 6’s new core mechanic and even showed off the “real time commentator” feature. I think I’ll be turning this off, thank you. I just think it’ll be too distracting. Prove me wrong, Capcom!

I still want more, though. There’s still a lot of stuff Capcom has been keeping under wraps which were shown in the full length trailer that they haven’t focused on yet. Of course, they haven’t revealed the complete default roster. The leak does look legit but I’m going to be severely disappointed if some of the characters in the leak are revealed to be future DLC characters. They haven’t discussed the entire Battle Hub, which might be the new Online lobby system just to make things a little more interactive than just staring at a menu while waiting to match with someone.

The thing I’m really curious about, however, is the World Tour mode. We only get a glimpse of what Capcom has planned but, from that limited look, we can kind of assume what they’re planning. It does look like you’ll be controlling a nameless and probably fully customizable character roaming around Metro City. It also looks like it will be something like an open world sandbox game where you can smash through obstacles and even fight online against other customized fighters. This does seem like a totally new spin on the classic Story Mode we’ve seen in other fighting games before.

That all seems fine and dandy. Getting into random fights against other players with customized characters seems weird but, at the same time, kind of a cool idea. However, I strangely would be more agreeable if you didn’t need to fight online players. While this does seem like the antithesis of the entire Street Fighter mantra of, you know, fighting in the streets, I do have a pitch to Capcom as to why a more pacifist way of playing World Tour mode might be fun, especially for the more casual fighting game fan.

In order to do that, I have to got way, way back into the past and talk about one of my first gaming experiences ever. In fact, it was a game I was really obsessed with… and I can’t even say it was a game, if I’m being honest. It was more like a very interactive chatroom. The game I’m referring to is PlayStation Home.

If you don’t know what PlayStation Home was, well, I don’t blame you. Basically, PlayStation Home was kind of like one of the earliest versions of a virtual world. You create an avatar and then go around the “world” as it were. There were different kinds of areas and worlds you could explore and you could play various games in them. You could even dress up your avatar or decorate your virtual apartment and stuff like that. The most fascinating part, for me anyway, was the fact that mostly everyone was another person controlling their online avatar.

You could say PlayStation Home was a critical failure. It was a rather niche product and I would imagine a very expensive service to maintain, especially if you had thousands of people logging into the service at the same time. Surprisingly, though, PlayStation Home was a commercial success as a lot of the people who used the free service would buy items such as clothing and hairstyles to customize our avatars. There were also quite a bit of advertisements posted all throughout PlayStation Home so I would bet Sony got some cash from those deals. Sadly, despite this, Sony did close its doors on PlayStation Home, leaving behind a very solid and sad fanbase of users.

Now, why do I mention PlayStation Home when talking about Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode? Well, I really hope it can be this generation’s version of PlayStation Home!

I’m not saying World Tour has to be exactly like PlayStation Home. I still say Capcom can still implement what they’re planning for the mode. You can still use World Tour as the tutorial and teach players the fundamentals of fighting, such as how to block and how to build up meter. I still fully expect to be able to traverse the entirety of Metro City and go meet Ryu and Chun-Li in certain areas. I would still like to train under some of the Street Fighters characters so my customized character can learn their moves and add them to my repertoire. I would still like players to go and join gangs or dojo or whatever Capcom intends to call “families” or whatever. I also would still like to take quests to beat on the scum of Metro City like Damnd, who does reel his ugly mug in the trailer, and the new Mad Gear gang. I’d still like to be able to do all of that, if that’s what Capcom has planned.

What I would want to avoid doing is using my custom avatar to face off against another player’s custom avatar. I do understand it’s probably the central backbone of what World Tour is, but it doesn’t have to be. World Tour could be a safe place for fledging fighters to get to learn about the characters. Let them meet Ryu and Chun-Li and learn techniques from them. Let them go on quests given by them and, along the way, meet the rest of Street Fighter 6’s cast of characters. Make World Tour an avenue for meeting new players in a safe environment. Let Metro City be a place for fans to just chat and get to know each other, not just through their fists but with their words as well.

You can also make World Tour the place to log in if you want the latest Street Fighter news or hold community events. It would be possible to designate something like a movie theater where you can watch live events like the Capcom World Tour or even go to someplace like a gym so you can test out a new DLC character for a limited time free of charge. You can even make this the place where you can go shopping for accessories and clothing for your avatar or where you can buy new costumes for the actual Street Fighter 6 characters and have them try the outfits out to see how they look before purchasing them.

The potential for World Tour is actually much bigger than you might think, Capcom. What I’m worried is you might make it compulsory to face off against other players here in order to get the most out of it. I would be okay to make my custom character and have him or her fight another custom character. It’s okay to make it a part of the mode but not the whole point of it. I would like to be able to play World Tour in a more passive manner, I guess is what I’m saying.

Byee!

How do you think Street Fighter 6’s World Tour will come out? Let me know in the comments section below!