Breaking down the Street Fighter 6 Teaser: Impressions and predictions

Capcom’s countdown was leading up to the next entry in the long-running Street Fighter series: Street Fighter 6. We only have a slick teaser to go on, but there’s already a few new things we can glean. Here’s all the cool things in the Street Fighter 6 teaser we found.

Breaking down the Street Fighter 6 Teaser: Impressions and predictions

The Street Fighter 6 teaser starts with close up shots of a grizzled Ryu. Emphasis is placed on the sweat and texture of his scarred skin. He’s looking pretty wide now, and absolutely yoked. He has the “hot Ryu” look from one of his SFV costumes: no shirt, big beard and even bigger muscles.

His opponent? Luke, the final fighter from Street Fighter V. Both are illuminated against the darkness by spotlights. It looks like they’re in an arena of sorts.

Hip hop music starts playing as they both get ready for their fight. Luke and Ryu both strike a pose with respective ink-styling. Luke has a colorful contrasting motif complete with print rosettes that’s like a comic book, while Ryu’s is the familiar Japanese ink-brush style.

Luke winds up a punch, and the teaser ends on a brand new logo design for Street Fighter: the letters “SF” in a hexagonal frame, with a six that kind of looks like an unread notification if I’m being frank. Notably, six is in Arabic numerals and not Roman like every other game in the series.

This is a massive departure from the original iconography, but with Luke on the mind I can’t help but think the logo is also reminiscent of a mixed martial arts ring. We watch them fight from all angles, as if we were spectators in the ring. The spotlighting, music and camera work all points to an MMA theme.

Mixed martial arts and fighting games have the same roots. Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon is the direct inspiration for Street Fighter and the fighting game genre as a whole, and the man’s own combat philosophy serves as much of the core for MMA fighting and popularized the concept.

Both are grounds for cultural pride and understanding, as different fighting styles and philosophies collide and ultimately enrich each other. That aside, at the end of the day you just need to get a bunch of fighters with different styles from around the world to duke it out in an arena. It’s a perfect motif for Street Fighter.

There must also be some significance to Ryu, Street Fighter’s first character, facing off against Luke, the franchise’s latest. Given the criticism Street Fighter V had about sparse launch content, I hope this is a sign that every character will be represented finally.

Luke throws the first punch, against the series poster child who looks significantly older than he used to. There’s definitely a contrast between old and new, all the way down to the modern pop-art motif Luke’s ink pattern evokes compared to Ryu’s traditional ink brushing.

Could this be Capcom making a concerted effort to push Street Fighter further beyond? There are so many possibilities. It would floor me if Street Fighter took the leap into 3D, and the more I watch the trailer the more I want something like that. Luke is revealed as the camera moves from behind Ryu’s back, but I could be reading too much into that.

For long running franchises, it’s easy to lose sight of the future and just focus on nostalgia and what works. That’s not what I’m getting from this. It’s the most different Street Fighter has ever felt, and that modern feeling has me excited for the future. I can’t wait to get my hands on Street Fighter 6.