The Street Fighter 6 closed beta is already revealing seriously cool features

Player-specific stages and new training options are among SF6's impressive new systems.
Henry Stenhouse
Associate Editor

Did you get into the Street Fighter 6 closed beta? Almost certainly not if the flood of weeping/grumpy memes flooding the web are to be believed. Fortunately, those who did get access have already begun sharing footage online, and boy does it look good.

The Street Fighter 6 closed beta isn’t just showing off how slick the new characters and visual style are, it’s also highlighting brilliant new additions and entertaining secrets. Here are some of the best things we’ve seen so far from the SF6 closed beta.

You can view different stages to your opponents

Wave goodbye to that bland training room. Street Fighter 6 will no longer force you to suffer through fights in a grey void, as it’s now possible for players online to view independent stages during matches.

As the side-by-side footage of Japan’s GO1 and the USA’s SonicFox above shows, each player can set their own preferred stages before loading into games. And don’t get us started on how smooth that cross-continent netcode is looking.

You can mess around like an idiot in the Battle Hub

On paper, Street Fighter 6’s Battle Hub sounds like an aspect players will quickly grow tired of in favor of faster loading through menus. But then again, the beta is showing just how silly your time in there can be. 

Running around between other folks as they battle it out, you can unleash moves like Chun-Li’s Spinning Bird Kick to fly across the hub. Alternatively, spend the entire time spamming out hadoukens, just like you do in your actual matches.

Actually useful training tools for newbies

For those less well versed in fighting game concepts, learning attack-cancel windows can be an agonizing and baffling experience. Explaining that you need to input a move on frame six just isn’t going to click for some.

Thankfully, as shared by @shiburizu on Twitter, it looks like Street Fighter 6 has multiple options to help out, including a timing bar, visual flash, and sound effects that let you know when you’re in a cancel window. The perfect tools for refining that muscle memory before you jump online.

Significant accessibility improvements

Those diving into the Street Fighter 6 menus have spotted a wealth of new audio accessibility options designed for the visually impaired. Along with the ability to adjust the volume of individual aspects like footsteps and hits, SF6 also includes the ability to turn on sounds to relay your distance to the opponent, the Drive Gauge status, and even whether an attack hits high, mid, or low. 

Monstrosities in the character creator

There are no words to describe the horrors we’ve seen. Look for yourself and decide whether these broken-bodied glowing avatars are glorious or nightmare fuel.

With customizable challenge screens and the World Tour mode, Street Fighter 6 is shaping up to deliver the best (and most welcoming) entry in the series for generations, and we can’t wait to see more from the rest of this weekend’s closed beta. All while we weep with envy at our own lack of access, naturally. Care to join us?

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.

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