It might be early to call, especially when we’ve still got a few months of 2022 to go, but I’m already positive who the front-runner is for 2023’s game of the year, and that’s Street Fighter 6.
I’ve already played Street Fighter 6, the latest in Capcom’s 35-year-old franchise so I already knew this beta would be special. But after spending a weekend in Street Fighter 6’s closed beta, its Battle Hub comes close to capturing that atmosphere online, and then some.
Fighting games like Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear Strive have already experimented with turning lobbies into a virtual space, but Capcom has gone the whole nine yards with a lobby that’s an arena-sized arcade space for the fighting game community (FGC). Instead of looking at dull menus while you wait for matchmaking, you create your own avatar to walk around, chat to your mates, or just walk up to a cabinet and take your seat either to spend time in training mode, or sit down opposite another player to challenge them.
You can still just turn on matchmaking for ranked and casual matches like normal, but there’s something special about being able to rub virtual shoulders with FGC pros and queuing up next to their cabinet for a challenge. Indeed, I did just that during the closed beta, and predictably got bodied by one-time Evo champion.
