Shawn McDowell Wants You To Know Fighting Games Are for Everyone, Including You | Winter Spectacular 2023
Fighting games have never been better. Exploding beyond the cultural phenomena of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat in the days of the arcade, past the modern fighting game revival led by Street Fighter IV, a new age of heroes is upon us and little could make me happier with the state of the genre.
Editor’s note: even as a non-fighting game scientist I learned a lot about Mortal Kombat this year. Mainly that this is very funny image.
Online play has reached a point where you can reliably play matches against people from other continents. Accessibility is at an all-time high thanks to almost every new release having a great tutorial and at least the option for a simple control scheme. Easy access to modern development tools and distribution platforms like Steam has allowed a flood of small teams to put out their own unique takes on the genre. We’re at a place where even a decade-old release like Killer Instinct can receive a balance update to celebrate its anniversary and the community that has loved it for years. Above all else though, the quality of new releases has never been higher. While scores aren’t everything when gauging reception, a quick glance at Street Fighter 6’s “92” on Metacritic averaged from over 100 critic reviews at least tells us that most people who touch the latest entry in Capcom’s legendary series absolutely love it. With all this critical acclaim, I wasn’t expecting an old question to arise in me yet again as games media started to reflect on the past 12 months:
“Where are the ‘Game of the Year’ nominations?”
No game deserves nominations, let alone awards. That recognition comes as a result of hard-working teams earning it for putting out exceptional experiences. It’s not even the awards themselves that concern me, personally. I genuinely couldn’t care less that the voting panel of The Keighley Awards didn’t put what I deem to be enough votes into a popularity contest or that any individual outlet didn’t nominate Street Fighter 6 for consideration of their overall GOTY award. What puzzles me is the disconnect between critical reception and recognition in the greater gaming landscape.
I find myself frustrated that fighting games continue to be seen as “those games over there made for people who aren’t me” by the overwhelming majority of players. Not every person can like every type of game, but in a time of industry-wide genre blending and the most popular games in the world being mechanically complicated shooters, I find the segmenting of fighting games away from everything else in the medium regardless of quality particularly odd. “Fighting Game of the Year” often feels less like a celebration of the genre and more like an award that exists solely to raise up a new Netherrealm or Arc System Works game without lumping them in with the “real” nominees of any given category. I see it as progress that at least at Giant Bomb, we as a group of people with varied levels of fighting game experience awarded Street Fighter 6 the more mainstream “Best Multiplayer Game” this year (even if it totally got robbed out of “Best Dude Tossing”).
Queen.
This piece isn’t meant to be a love letter to Street Fighter specifically, nor a call for more medals to be pinned to Ryu’s comically muscular chest. I simply think we’ve been given a unique opportunity with a game so universally beloved coming from the more hardcore (as in, not named “Super Smash Bros.”) side of fighting games, and we should reflect on why games like Street Fighter 6 continue to be siloed off in the minds of players beyond the enthusiast level. For many new releases, the answer is some variation of the obvious “Not enough was done for the casuals”. This continues to be a sentiment that extends not only to consumers, but also the larger part of games media who would preview/review the games and have no idea what “low forward into fireball” means. Fighting games still exist in a niche, one that was self-imposed for a long time due to lack of accessibility, but currently seems to stem from preconceived notions.
“They’re too hard.”
“I’m not good enough to have fun with them.”
“I’m just going to lose, why bother?”
“I don’t like getting my ass kicked online.”
These aren’t hypotheticals from some imaginary “casual” that I, a fighting game enthusiast, have dreamed up. They’re real quotes from my casual gamer friends and colleagues in the industry. As I mentioned at the start of this adventure, though, the games themselves have never been more welcoming. Developers continue to bend over backwards to bring in new players with flashy visuals or an abundance of characters, but they’re also doing their best to retain players of all experience levels and convince them to at least try the “endgame” of playing against other human beings.
I’ve done my best for many years now to come up with a conclusion for why fighting games continue to be an “other” in gaming. Ultimately, I believe we’ve reached a point where the developers cease to be at fault. Their releases are no longer obtuse, impenetrable puzzles for a player to solve. Lengthy FAQs and extended YouTube tutorials aren’t necessary just to play at a level beyond button mashing. Even a series as notorious for overflowing with legacy skill as Tekken is taking unprecedented strides to welcome newcomers. Not only is the upcoming Tekken 8 providing players with a wealth of single-player content, but it's also encouraging exploration of the more technical aspects of the game by putting each character’s best attacks and combos front and center in the move list complete with developer notes on best usage. It’s the next-best thing to being able to directly ask Harada about shit.
MarkMan (right) showing how I feel trying to learn Tekken 7.
It seems to me that it’s now on the players to try fighting games out with a fresh, open-minded perspective and signal boost the ones that click with them. Gamers are competitive by nature, and losing stings. That’s often the reason for people repeatedly slamming their head against the (usually metaphorical) wall before tossing their controller aside for the day or even giving up on a game altogether. However, just as people have come to love twitchy precision platformers like Celeste or every brutally-punishing adventure released by FromSoftware, I truly believe that the defeatist attitude of fighting games being the Kobayashi Maru of video games can change. That needs to start with the people who enjoy them singing praises of their achievements as quality video games and spreading the good news that they’re at a point where anyone can learn how to play.
The fighting game community has lived on as long as it has, only growing stronger and more solidified with time because passionate people continue to champion their favorite take on head-to-head combat. Whether it’s Dragon Ball characters smashing each other through buildings while arguably looking better than the source material, a hodge-podge of 80s movie tropes performing gruesome fatalities on one another, or even distilling the genre down to the ultimate game of rock paper scissors, fighting games offer something for everyone. If you’re in the same position as me, being the expert in your friend group on the subject trying to get everyone else to give them a shot, it all comes down to listening to what people want and putting the right game in front of them so they can organically feel the joy of gradually mastering a game through practice and choosing to keep it in their regular rotation out of pure love.
Take your pick!
To close, I have just one direct request: Go find the fighting game you adore, and tell your friends why it’s awesome. The only way the genre can become as mainstream as any other is if those of us who love it shout from the rooftops to those hesitant that yes, they too can now just hop in, press some buttons, and have a blast with everyone who’s been here for years. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll even “get good”.
