Street Fighter V Pre-Load Available on Steam

Good news, Steam users! Numerous reports are flooding in that Street Fighter V is now available for pre-load on PC. While this won’t allow you to jump in at the moment, it will save you some download time next Tuesday when the game officially launches.

Those of you have yet to pre-order Street Fighter V can still do so, especially if you want to grab the alternate Chun-Li outfit (pictured above) free of charge.

Street Fighter V is set to launch for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16. According to Capcom representative wbacon, Street Fighter V will unlock on Steam around 9 AM PST, 12 PM EST.

Source: Steam, tip via Renan N.

NetherRealm Studios Now Streaming – Kombat Kast: Massacre

As promised earlier this week, the folks at NetherRealm Studios just went live with a Kombat Kast dedicated to the chainsaw-wielding movie monster, Leatherface.

If you’re looking to learn everything surrounding this Kombat Pack 2 character, you’ll not want to miss their stream. In the event that you do miss the stream, you can check back here; we’ll be updating this post with a text-based version of the information shared.

You can watch the stream below, or head over to Twitch to join the chat.

Watch live video from NetherRealm on www.twitch.tv

Source: NetherRealm

Online Lobbies, Spectating Planned for Street Fighter V’s March Update

Earlier today, we reported on details Capcom provided regarding Street Fighter V’s downloadable content schedule. While character release intervals were the main focus, their timeline also provided some insight into online play.

Unfortunately, it’s looking like Street Fighter V won’t launch with lobbies. They, along with spectating, will be added to the game sometime in March, alongside Alex, the in-game store, various gameplay modes, and more. When they do arrive, the online hang-outs will support up to eight players.

Street Fighter V releases for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16. Be sure to keep this information in mind if the early lack of lobbies is a dealbreaker.

Source: Capcom-Unity, special thanks to Arturo Sanchez for bringing this to our attention.

Street Fighter V’s Survival, Challenge Modes Provide Solo Distractions

For the most part, the focus of the marketing leading up to Street Fighter V’s release has leaned towards its more competitive aspects. Aside from details about the game’s story mode, we haven’t really heard much about other singleplayer aspects. Until now, that is.

In a new post on Capcom-Unity, Neidel “Haunts” Crisan dropped some new details on Street Fighter V’s Survival, Challenge, Targets, and Extra Battle modes.

Survival plays just like survival has in other fighting games, where a character’s health and EX meters carry over between fights. In Street Fighter V, this is divided into four difficulty levels or courses – Easy, Medium, Hard, and Hell. Similar to Street Fighter IV, players can unlock alternate colors for each character’s default outfit with victories in this mode. One can be unlocked in the easy courses, three in medium, and four in hard.

To help players who simply want to unlock colors, Survival also allows players to use power-ups like increased attack power and life recovery. However, as a trade off, they also deduct points from the overall score.

sfv-survival

Challenge mode, on the other hand, consists of four sub-modes. The first, Battle Tips, teaches players how to play Street Fighter V through helpful demonstrations of tutorial content. Next, Trials should be familiar to anyone who has picked up a fighting game in recent years, offering up increasingly difficult combo challenges for all sixteen characters.

sfv-trials

Targets, the daily challenges we’ve already detailed, give players a chance to earn extra Fight Money, custom titles, and more. And finally, Extra Battle consists of matches against computer-controlled bosses that provide an extra challenge. Players who beat these bosses will earn special in-game rewards.

sfv-extra-battle

Targets and Extra Battle challenges will be available soon after launch, with Battle Tips and Trials coming in March.

Street Fighter V releases on February 16 for PlayStation 4 and PC.

Source: Capcom-Unity

Street Fighter V Players Can Expect a New Character (Almost) Every Month After Release

There’s been a great deal of speculation lately concerning the pace at which new characters will join the Street Fighter V roster. Fortunately, Capcom has put that to rest by releasing an extended look at their downloadable content schedule.

After Alex launches in March, players can expect the next two cast members to drop in April and May. The cinematic story expansion will then take the wheel in June, with character releases resuming at a pace of one per month until September.

While we know Guile, Balrog, Ibuki, Juri, and Urien will eventually be added to Street Fighter V, their release order is still up in the air for the general public. Capcom has also mentioned the possibility of a second round of characters, so stay tuned for more details.

A season pass, which includes all six characters and their premium costumes, will be available for $29.99, though the developers have promised that completing the singleplayer content should give players more than enough in-game Fight Money to grab Alex for free.

Street Fighter V is set to launch for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16. If you missed out, be sure to check out Alex’s concept art here.

Source: Capcom-Unity

Timothy Bradley vacates WBO belt

Timothy Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) has vacated his WBO welterweight title.
The WBO ordered the American to defend his belt against mandatory challenger Sadam Ali, but Bradley instead opted to fight Manny Pacquiao for a third time and relinquish the title.
Ali will now face former WBA light welterweight champion Jessie Vargas for the vacant title on March 5.
Vargas previously challenged for the WBO belt, losing on points to Bradley last June.
Bradley and Pacquiao, who will fight on April 9 in a…

Here’s Alex! Capcom Shares Concept Art of Street Fighter V’s First Downloadable Character

While it’s not quite the gameplay we were hoping for, Capcom shared concept art for Alex, the Street Fighter III veteran who will serve as the first of Street Fighter V’s downloadable characters. Like much of the art in the game, this design was created by famed Capcom collaborator Bengus.

In the gallery below, you’ll see how Alex’s look has changed, starting with Street Fighter III, moving onto his appearance in Street Fighter V’s City in Chaos stage, and ending with the aforementioned concept art.

Click to view slideshow.

Street Fighter V is set to launch for PlayStation 4 and PC on next Tuesday, February 16. Alex will be available sometime in March, with Guile, Juri, Ibuki, and Urien joining the game at regular intervals through the year.

Source: Capcom

Kinetiquettes to Release Diorama Celebrating Daigo Umehara

It’s always exciting to see our favorite characters from video games, comic books, movies–nearly anything, really–brought to life in physical mediums. On top of offering these characters a real-life manifestation, such pieces can really tie the room together. While such works have often drawn inspiration from the fighting genre, we’ve never seen inspiration quite like what the muses recently brought Kinetiquettes.

Earlier this week, when the company teased an upcoming product reveal–the fruits of a partnership with both Mad Catz and Capcom–no one could have guessed the split image showing Ryu bumped up against his markedly more evil counterpart would end up including the face of Mad Catz’ Daigo Umehara.

On top of representing the “end of an era,” (their words, long live Street Fighter IV) this diorama represents Daigo’s transition from Wandering Warrior to Herald of the Dark Hadou. Standing at 1/4 scale, the massive piece features The Beast himself flanked by Ryu and Evil Ryu, the three of them appropriately situated atop a Yin Yang symbol.

More details for the product can be found in the trailer below, as well as on Kinetiquettes’ official website.

What do you think? Will The Beast be a part of your personal collection?

Source: Kinetiquettes

Capcom Won’t Be Making Additional Balance Changes to Street Fighter V at Launch

As with almost all major releases, Street Fighter V is out in the wild, whether it be through mom and pop shops hooking up regular customers, press getting early access, or other means. At times, that can make the wait even harder, even if the game they’re playing might not be the same one that’s lands on store shelves.

Earlier today, competitor and tournament organizer Joe “LI Joe” Ciaramelli raised a similar point on Twitter, saying that a day one patch may change Street Fighter V to the point that gameplay discoveries made in the next few day are rendered moot. While launch day patches are nothing new, they have the potential to completely readjust fighting games.

This, combined with previous reports that Street Fighter V’s compatibility with PlayStation 3 controllers is made possible by a day one update, led Shoryuken to reach out to Capcom for word on if players can expect any sort of balance tweaking past that.

“[Street Fighter V] right now includes the Day 1 update,” a Capcom rep relayed to us, “and it will be the same version as what everyone will be playing when the game officially releases.”

Case closed! Those of you out there who have managed to snag an early copy of Street Fighter V won’t have any surprise balance changes waiting for you in a separate update. Everyone else can look forward to the game launching for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16.

Frame Trapped to Bring Hitbox Viewer, Combo Training, and Accessibility Features to Street Fighter V

There’s no questioning the fact that being able to break apart every piece of information on the screen can help fighting game players level up their game, but accessing all of it isn’t always as easy as we would like it to be. Features like hitbox viewers rarely find their way into the games we love; however, the community boasts plenty of people capable of using their technical know-how to bring these useful details out of hiding.

If you’ve had a chance to use Frame Trapped with Ultra Street Fighter IV, you know that the program was built to do just that: help players explore the game through hitbox viewing, combo training, and more. With Street Fighter V coming next week, creator Tom Piddock was pleased to announce earlier today that Frame Trapped will be making its way to the new title.

When we spoke to Piddock, he told us users can expect to see the program launch with a fully-functional hitbox viewer. He and his team, which includes Camera Man developer Lullius, are currently working to equip Street Fighter V players with the Combo Trainer tool found in the Ultra Street Fighter IV version of the program as well, and plan to add more features down the road.

Perhaps the most exciting of these future additions comes in the form of what Piddock calls a “Game-to-Speech” accessibility feature, which will provide blind players with on-screen information they may otherwise be missing.

Players can expect to get their hands on the program “as soon as possible after [Street Fighter V’s] release.” For now, tide yourself over with these images of the work in progress.

Click to view slideshow.

Source: Tom Piddock