Fighting games recently entered their latest era. Since the genre's inception, trends have naturally formed within the fighting games of each console generation. From the original golden age when Street Fighter 2 and the classic Mortal Kombat trilogy set standards on the SNES to the PS1 and Dreamcast era of 3D fighters like Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Virtua Fighter, the days on the PS2 where fighting game regulars struggled to evolve, and the return of fighting games with Street Fighter 4, Mortal Kombat 9, and many other titles on PS3 and Xbox 360, fighting games have been through a lot in the past three decades.

Genre developments haven't stopped, either. The PS4 and Xbox One era played host to Street Fighter 5's launch, and while it sold well over time, it wasn't well-regarded. This resulted in the dominance of Tekken 7, a Guilty Gear resurgence, the return of The King of Fighters, and Mortal Kombat cementing itself beside Super Smash Bros. as the most successful fighting franchise. Even with the fighting genre booming, there was a lot of room to grow on the PS5 and Xbox Series come 2020. In only a few short years since then, fighting games have come a very long way in terms of design, features, and so much more.

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Street Fighter Embodies The Changing State of Fighting Games

As always, a microcosm of the fighting game genre can be found in Street Fighter. Street Fighter 5 remains somewhat infamous for its disastrous launch, subpar netcode, and the perceived spearheading of a toned-down generation of fighters. A few AAA fighting games like Mortal Kombat 11 and Guilty Gear Strive followed SF5 by scaling back mechanical complexity in the name of accessibility. Fans' key criticism of this involved characters' strongest abilities being locked behind certain mechanics, or removed entirely. By 2020, however, Street Fighter had begun to pull away from this.

Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition underscored the beginning of 2020, and led into the diverse characters, new V-Shift mechanic, and cast-wide buffs of DLC season 5. After that rolled out in 2021, Street Fighter 6 was formally revealed in 2022 with an obvious visual improvement and single-player content the likes of fighting games in general rarely saw. Dramatically improved online, a much larger number of features, stronger overall characters, and modernized presentation all made SF6 an instant hit in June 2023. Changes that began in 2020 bore fruit in 2023, and other fighting games were reflecting Street Fighter's evolution.

Fighting Games Are Learning From Past Titles' Mistakes

A lot of lessons were learned by fighting games during the PS4 and Xbox One days, and one 2020 taught was the importance of good online. There's no better illustration of this than the release of the delay netcode-based Granblue Fantasy Versus right before North America declared a lockdown in mid-2020, succeeded in 2023 by Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising's rollback-infused revival. It's slow-going, but old and new fighting games are being fitted with better netcode and even the notoriously archaic online of Bandai Namco's fighters is taking steps for the better.

Netcode isn't all that changed, and as the upcoming slate of fighting games can attest, those changes include better tools for veterans and newcomers alike. Aggressive mechanics are everywhere, but so is accessibility. Whether it's the game-changing Modern control scheme and Drive System introduced in SF6, Tekken 8's Heat System, or MK1's Kameo Fighters and air combos, flashy and useful abilities are placed in players' hands without taking utility away. It's clear that fighting games are finally casting off their limiters, embracing good practices, and becoming bold with their design. Having these trends in place should keep the genre healthy and fresh for years to come.

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