Fighting game fans are not happy. Amid what should be a genre renaissance, developers are dropping the ball with radio silence regarding updates, patches that fundamentally break what fans loved about their franchise, or bizarre roster decisions, including a bit too many guest characters.
On the latter topic, the recent Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves reveals have soured a player base initially excited after playing the first open beta. Sure, there were plenty of technical issues to iron out, but the core mechanics appealed to those who had missed more depth and less simplified systems to make titles more appealing to casual fans.
A small section of the fanbase pays no mind that Cristiano Ronaldo and DJ Salvatore Ganacci are two guest characters joining the game as base roster fighters, likely replacing original SNK ones. That's not even considering that season 1 will include two more: Chun-Li and Ken from Street Fighter. In the words of the immortal ComboFiend, characters are just functions, right?
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+ 2Well, yes. But they can be so much more than that for many fans. Fighting games have been around for decades. If you've been playing this genre for a long time, you'll likely have found a character you connect with on more than just a surface-level "I love this archetype" type of deal. As a C. Viper enthusiast in Street Fighter IV, I am jealous of those Elena fans who are just weeks (hopefully) away from getting to see how she plays in Street Fighter 6.
Sadly, plenty of true hardcore SNK fans are being robbed of that opportunity in favor of niche celebrities and football players. At least Chun and Ken make more sense and fit right into South Town. You can also argue that CR7 helps market the niche title to a whole new audience, but I draw the line at a niche DJ who isn't even that popular in the EDM scene.
It's clear, albeit not confirmed, that Cristiano and Ganacci are almost corporate-mandated guest inclusions. SNK is owned by Saudis, where Cristiano is king, and I would assume Ganacci is extremely popular.
Even if SNK's hands are tied, the same excuse can't be applied to other developers, specifically, Capcom. SF6 has been under fire for its lack of constant updates: a long time between patches that rarely shake the game and no meaningful cosmetics since adding new outfits to a few characters in 2023.
It's also been two months since Mai Shiranui was released, and we haven't even gotten Elena's gameplay teaser, as a new CPT season is right around the corner.
click to enlarge + 2What stings for some fans is that the painful wait for news is made even more egregious by the fact that season 2 was half-dedicated to guest characters. Everyone loved the initial excitement of Terry Bogard and Mai coming to Metro City. Now that the dust has settled, it's not gone unnoticed that we're heading into Year 3 of SF6, and many fan-favorite characters are missing.
Sure, the newcomers were a welcomed addition, and season 1 brought the legendary Akuma back into the mix, but in two seasons' worth of DLC, only Rashid, Ed, Akuma, Bison, and Elena as returning characters isn't enough. That's two years for five familiar faces to make a comeback; many haven't been absent for that long.
SF6 is supposed to put the franchise past Street Fighter III timeline-wise. What happened to the rest of that roster? Where are Dudley, Makoto, and Ibuki?
Guest characters started as a novelty to bridge the gap between two franchises and give fans something to be excited about. Link in SoulCalibur II was a "you had to be there moment." The Cloud in Smash trailer had grown men crying. Now, developers have made the guest character gimmick feel mundane and, dare I say, obnoxious.
In small doses, they can still feel special. Fans are hopeful that Lucy from Cyberpunk sparks a bit more interest in Guilty Gear Strive. 2B in Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising feels right at home (more so than her Soulcalibur VI rendition).
Even so, maybe it's time to relax on outsiders, and developers should focus on the characters that helped elevate their franchises in the first place.
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