Street Fighter V has had its fair share of bad publicity lately what with delays on DLC characters and the rather public incident of harassment at a Capcom Pro Tour event. Harrison over at Capcom-Unity put out a blog post (June 9th) regarding the status of the Street Fighter V's June update that includes the “cinematic story mode” along with changes to its microtransaction system.
A Shadow Falls
The game’s first major single player offering will be titled “A Shadow Falls” that will be broken up into five chapters. The estimated duration is three to fours and will feature every character on the roster. Capcom, clearly taking a page from Mortal Kombat X‘s story mode, will present something entirely new to the franchise when the update drops in late June.
The story hinges upon Shadaloo’s deployment of seven “Black Moons” around the world. These objects empower the villainous M. Bison who is, of course, looking to put the globe under his thumb. The World Warriors are charged, as they always have been, with the job of putting a stop to Shadaloo’s evil ways and restore order. The core group of Ryu, Ken and Interpol agent Chun-Li will travel the globe in search of the seven fragments and they’ll encounter everybody else along the way. Harrison confirmed that characters such as Urien, Juri and Balrog will be playable within the game’s cinematic story mode as a sort of “free preview” of what’s to come. Ibuki will be fully released alongside included story mode.
Players who complete story mode will also earn Fight Money (the in-game currency that allows for purchasing of characters, costumes, stages, profile icons, etc.) to further customize their favorite fighters.
A higher difficulty becomes unlocked after clearing the normal mode, which you can also earn extra Fight Money from:
Normal Mode= 30,000 FM
Extra Mode*= 50,000 FM
TOTAL= 80,000 FM
*Extra Mode (higher difficulty) unlocks after you complete Normal mode
So Long Zenny Store
That lead into the next major change that’s coming along with the cinematic story mode and everyone’s favorite kunai wielding warrior, Ibuki. Capcom is abandoning the Zenny store altogether. The original aim was to provide a completely in-game solution for players who wanted to outright purchase characters, costumes, stages and other items via a microtransaction system known as the Zenny Shop. Harrison elaborated further on the change of heart:
We have an important announcement regarding the in-game currency system. We will no longer be introducing Zenny to Street Fighter V as a real money currency option. After extensive testing and development, we came to the conclusion that it was not necessary in order to carry out our original vision for the product. Instead, we will be utilizing the PlayStation Store and Steam stores to carry out real money transactions.
Our plan for the in-game economy of SFV was always to provide players with choice. Fight Money remains as the basic currency that players can earn for FREE through gameplay and utilize to purchase characters and other awesome downloadable content like stages and costumes. For players who want to just purchase the content outright, instead of introducing Zenny, the process will be much more familiar with purchases happening through the established first party infrastructures.
So, Fight Money is still sticking around and can be earned via the incoming Story Mode and all future content can be purchased with it but it appears that sticking with established channels of digital purchasing on downloadable content (via the PlayStation Store and Steam’s storefront) will be the real-money option moving forward. This also means that folks who’ve been working with Alex or Guile (the game’s first two DLC characters) will no longer be able to play as either unless they are Season Pass holders or have purchased the two with Fight Money. He also added a handy chart to showcase the pricing on content both in Fight Money and real currency as well:
Those Premium Costumes mentioned in the last section? Those are the prior pre-order bonuses from various retailers that will finally be widely available. Your dreams of playing as shirtless and bearded Ryu will finally come true, folks. Story Costumes, formerly only available by going through each Character Story, will also be made available as well.
The previously announced Daily Challenges that would help generate more Fight Money by players achieving specific goals on a daily basis have been pushed back to be “re-tooled and optimized”. More info will come on that as it develops though nothing in the way of a release date target was set within this post. While some may complain about it, it is better that they're being open about it and informing fans in a timely fashion as opposed to what happened with Ibuki’s supposed May release that got pushed back to June.
Pete “Combofiend” Rosas also sat down with IGN to talk more about the upcoming Story Mode and offer a further glimpse at gameplay with Ibuki.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI69_odimgI
The state of the game is still strong in competitive play but casual fans seem to be turning their attentions to other games as there are no shortage of them this year. Capcom has some real work to do to dig themselves out of the hole that the rather disastrous launch of Street Fighter V put them in. Updates such as these and a renewed effort to more openly communicate with fans directly as Director of eSports and Digital Media for Capcom USA, Haunts, took to Reddit to let everyone know they’re listening:
“One thing I’ll say is that even though we haven’t been very vocal lately, I have been taking stock in what your guys frustrations are with the game and have been communicating that internally. The rest of the team is aware of many of the issues that are brought up, we just need to do a better job letting everyone know where we’re at in terms of priorities. Don’t worry, you haven’t been shouting into the abyss, we hear you.”
This is a good start but there are still numerous issues to be tackled that include rage quitting, input latency issues, and other foundational problems that simply aren’t fixed yet. Winning back the hearts and minds of the general audience will be an uphill battle for them but taking feedback, communicating consistently and, hopefully, sticking to the release schedule they’ve showcased before will help Street Fighter V‘s longevity.
What do you think of the upcoming June release for Street Fighter V? Do you like or dislike the cancellation of the Zenny shop? Share all your Street Fighter V thoughts in the comments below!
