Watching streamers come to grips with Street Fighter 6 - any fighter really - is one of the best uses of the medium. Gabriel is also learning the game, and learning a lot of other things too. Like, about himself.

I was reading about SF6's "Modern Control Type," and it's interesting. Some of the most incredible experiences we've had playing games over almost thirty years were the result of the genre's cloistered and esoteric nature. One of our first, real "friend things" was splitting the cost of a Tekken import for the original PlayStation and trying to master its arcane rituals. Soul Calibur, BlazBlue, I mean just years and years of GameFAQs printouts and sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor trying to master every input.

But SF6 wouldn't be the only fighting game that thinks there might be value in decoupling mechanical complexity from strategy. It can be thought of as part of the Accessibility conversation, but philosophically these games have no interest in making the decision matrix less complex. Fantasy Strike, which I've mentioned before on the site because I like the cut of its designer's jib, goes into great detail on this topic. He's a super competitive person, so purely as an aesthetic he's never going to do something to diminish the potential of high level play.

Riot's upcoming "Project L," whenever it arrives, will grow game crystals on a similar conceptual substrate. The League of Legends fighter they're trying to generate had its genesis in the acquisition of Radiant Entertainment, who was at PAX with a small booth two to three million years ago. I even had a chance to play it against the demonic sorcerer Rami Ismail, who made a bunch of games you've probably played, and over the course of a single round we'd learned our main toolkit. That's different from being good at the game, of course - but that's the point. This approach is designed to get a greater percentage of players to the game, faster.

Smash Bros has very simple inputs, but high level play is extremely technical. Except for Steve. Fuck Steve.

(CW)TB out.