Street Fighter 6 just announced another battle pass for him heading into the 2025 season, full of cosmetics for player avatars, stickers, and online opponent portraits. But for fans of Street Fighter 6 who have been wanting new clothes for the main team, the news has gone down a lot.
If you check out the trailer fight ahead YouTube or Twitteryou will be given hundreds of negative comments and reactions. The pass has been mentioned lameand an incorruptible ancestor by some on social media, but the YouTube comments can be summed up nicely by one misterbranches4362, who wrote “I'd rather have nothing. Thank you”.
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Okay, how did we get here, and why are people so upset? Well, Street Fighter 6 is Capcom's first proper crack at a modern live service title. It's not free-to-play, but it was supported by various battle passes after launch along with the expected crop of new characters and character outfits. The problem is, new characters and new costumes for the whole team are not coming out at the pace that players expect, and avatar clothes and cosmetics seem less like stickers etc. as priority.
Although we don't know how popular avatar battles are, or the percentage split between the players who jump into avatar lobbies to play online versus those who just pick up and drop at 3AM, it is assumed at this stage of the game's life cycle that those who play the game are dedicated, I might say hardcore gamers. These types of players aren't duking it out in avatar battles, instead they'll be labbing combos for hours on regular Street Fighter characters like Rashid and Ryu. Combos that are sure to drop at their local tournament regardless of how flashy their in-game avatar is.
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Here is some additional context. The last time we got character outfits in Street Fighter 6 – the stuff these angry players want – was in December 2023 with the Outfit Pack 3. This provided new outfits for the launch roster, not any DLC characters. The Outfit 3 pack for the first wave of DLC characters was dropped back in May. That means for most characters, cosmetics that you see on your character, during regular games, haven't been sold for over a year. Compare that to Street Fighter 5, which had a lot of new costumes attached to the Capcom Pro Tour, and you can see why some players who have been around for a while are frustrated.
So the controversy is in short order. The only big question that remains is, why has Capcom taken this approach to post-game support? The developer, who has long struggled to comfortably embrace the live service model, has made it clear that the game needs regular post-launch support, but he has chosen cosmetics like Avatar clothes and stickers to do so. Even in collaborative events, like the twist on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtleswe got Avatar stuff.
We don't know the internal data that Capcom is working with, maybe there is this silent majority of players who like to buy avatar cosmetics, get hold of every battle pass, and messing around in the in-game arcade lobby all day. There may be a real demand for this stuff, but so far, we don't see evidence of that online. Perhaps, instead, it is cheaper to create this type of cosmetic? Instead of redesigning an entire character, it might be faster and cheaper to create a costume for the Avatar rig. Maybe Japan, a country where Street Fighter 6 is still very popular (in fact, maybe even getting more popular) is pretty bad for dressing up freaky human-esque monster men ? It is possible, but no one can prove it at this point.
Ultimately it's something that Capcom will have to face, and if nothing changes, a reality that Street Fighter 6 players will have to face. The wildest thing about this whole situation is that there is a clear, powerful voice coming from players who say they want to spend money on new kits. Online demand may not translate into actual sales, but it's still an interesting distraction to watch from afar, and a case study for other aspiring fighting game developers. accept live service.
