The word of the week is datamining. We’ve gotten plenty of Street Fighter V news from official sources lately, but just as much has come from people poking around in the beta files on their PCs. As with most information found through this kind of searching, none of these details have been confirmed by Capcom, and could very well be serving as red herrings to throw us off the trail of things they’d prefer we not find. Anything is possible.
With that caveat out of the way, recent discoveries point to Street Fighter V including two modes that have made their way into plenty of fighting games in the past: story and survival. Neither of these modes come as a surprise, but we don’t currently have any idea how involved either will be.
Story mode, for example, could be something as simple as what we got in Street Fighter IV’s arcade mode–an introduction for the character, a specific rival battle, and an ending scene to (sort of) wrap everything up. But with the praise that Mortal Kombat X received for its involved, B-movie-inspired narrative, it’s hard to speculate that Capcom would stick to the easier route in the upcoming title. That isn’t to say that the developers have to do exactly what NetherRealm Studios did, but they could. If they do, let’s hope they at least skip on the quicktime events.
Survival mode is a different beast entirely. Sure, we could see something pretty plain: pick your Ryu or your Ken and get your one health bar, punch the bad guys until they’ve punched you too much, fall down, game over, enter your initials for the scoreboard. That would work, but it would be boring. What about item pickups? What about RPG elements? In a game mode (likely) designed to have the player face off entirely against AI opponents, there’d be no need to worry about the player becoming too strong, so they could go nuts. Give us Rainbow Edition moves. Give us tag partners. Let us fight seven R. Mikas at once and win.
Okay, so, maybe not seven R. Mikas at once, but you get the idea.
As it stands, Street Fighter V is already making strides in the right direction with beta tests to make sure everything works once February 16 rolls around and the addition of cross-platform play (they’re not the first to do it, but it’s an excellent, modern feature). There’s so much more they could do to make the single-player elements just as inviting as the competitive elements to perhaps draw in more players and help grow the scene, so let’s hope these tiny details add up to something great.
Source: Namr2000, tip from Neoxon
