Is Street Fighter 6’s World Tour The Fighting Game RPG We Always Wanted?

IGN has shared a final preview of Street Fighter 6 that seems to bring up a question that longtime fighting game fans have always asked; is it possible to make a fighting game RPG?

This has been an elusive question of sorts, that fans will answer with many different kinds of games that fit what they would consider to be fighting game elements. I’m going to dismiss both Samurai Shodown RPG and Dissidia right here, since these are just characters taken from one video game genre to another.

Some people may point to The Bouncer and Crimson Tears, both made by Dream Factory, and possibly also PlatinumGames’ Anarchy Reigns. While these had the complex gameplay comparable to fighting games, they are really more 3D beat em ups.

Some fans may point to Shaolin, a now obscure PlayStation game, where you had a character with an entire story arc, and also had to fight level up with new and more powerful moves. There’s a solid case for Shaolin to take this honor, if only it had been more successful in the market.

Perhaps closest to what we are talking about now is the RPG mode in Square Enix’s fighting games Tobal and Ehrgeiz, both on the PlayStation. These boasted more refined 3D fighting action than Shaolin, but the RPG mode didn’t have as involved a production.

It would take Street Fighter 6 itself to reintroduce the idea with its World Tour mode, which is a major part of this final preview. Now expanded to three chapters, World Tour mode reveals the ambition of being able to challenge literally any character you meet across the street to a fight.

World Tour has a fully realized open world, with many points of interest to find and reward you, ultimately with the end goal of making your custom character more powerful. While people old enough to remember the six Street Fighter IIs will want to switch to Classic controls, Modern controls will hopefully engage non fighting game fans.

There is also an interesting loop in regards to your mentors. After meeting Luke and Chun Li, you can make an effort to bond closer with your chosen mentor, including sparring with them often, but also giving them gifts from missions you find in the open world. The reward for getting closer with some mentors over others is customizing your move set with new moves they teach you.

You can learn more about the regular fighting game mode in the preview below, but it really does seem that this new World Tour mode is going for the fences in making fighting games part of every gamer’s real regular play library once again.

Street Fighter 6 releases on June 2, 2023 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam.