Capcom: we'll keep our fighters in check

Capcom has promised fighting game fans it won't repeat the mistakes of the nineties and run Street Fighter and its other fighting games into the ground with multiple titles and overly complex mechanics.

"We're definitely cognizant of that," Capcom fighting guru Seth Killian told Eurogamer as part of a new Street Fighter x Tekken interview published today.

"It was not just the preponderance of fighting games. There were a lot. But some of them... BloodStorm we knew was garbage just by looking at it. I played a lot of BloodStorm. I played them all. Some of them you could just tell, OK, this is a silly game. That doesn't stop people from having tournaments on them anyway.

"If there are a lot of fighting games, in part that's beyond our control. There are a lot of other publishers."

In 2008 Capcom reignited mainstream interest in fighting games with the release of Street Fighter IV.

It followed it up with Super Street Fighter IV – a standalone game sold at a budget price. And it will end the run of Street Fighter IV games this summer when it releases Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition as a standalone game and as downloadable content.

In the nineties Capcom released multiple Street Fighter spin-offs, each one adding new mechanics and, as a result, complexity, culminating in Street Fighter III: Third Strike – a game many hardcore fighting games consider to be the greatest the genre has ever produced.

But for many it was too complicated, and a follow up would not launch for a decade afterwards.

Killian said Capcom will not make the same mistake again.

"Our focus is to still make the games as absolutely dead hardcore and serious as they can be, but make sure we don't fall into the trap of adding complexity for its own sake," he explained.

"If we're going to add a mechanic, justify it within the flow of the game, and make sure our hand is held out to the new players as well.

"What that means will be different from game to game. With Marvel you can just tap buttons, and easier supers and specials. It's something we have in mind for Street Fighter x Tekken.

"Even for Arcade Edition, as we've seen the iterations of Street Fighter IV, we haven't added mechanics. That's been a conscious decision. We're adding characters, environments, bonus stages and online features. Things that are not a burden to the player.

"So, you can come in and play Arcade Edition for the first time, and you'll have more characters to learn, but learning characters is fun and exciting, whereas learning mechanics can be fun and exciting, but that's where the real work sometimes comes in. But it's not necessarily the fun work.

"The fun work is the match-ups, the mind games and the different techniques all the characters have. Just learning how to parry every move in the game is just a lot of work. It can be rewarding work, but we're going to add fun without raising the bar to the point where a player who hasn't been playing since Street Fighter IV or Street Fighter II comes in and is mystified by what's going on."