Even without confirmed release dates for countless big-name titles, 2023 is shaping up to be one of the most impressive years in gaming for quite some time. Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Dead Space Remake have all already released to great fanfare, and those jubilant cheers are only set to continue over the next few months with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and so much more set to release. But by far one of the most intriguing games of the year has to be Street Fighter 6, which in any other year would be at the top of the industry's most anticipated list. However, in 2023, it might be considered somewhat of an underdog.
The Street Fighter franchise is one of the biggest names in gaming, and has been for almost four decades. In the fighting game space, there are few IPs that can rival Street Fighter, but in the gaming landscape as a whole, Street Fighter isn't really the brand it once was, and it's going up against some absolute juggernauts this June.
Street Fighter 6 Is Facing Off Against a Tough Crowd This June
Street Fighter 6 is currently slated for a June 2, 2023 release date. Thankfully, Street Fighter 6 has managed to narrowly avoid the juggernaut that is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is guaranteed to be the talk of the industry in May, just as Breath of the Wild was in 2017. But in escaping Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Street Fighter 6 has left itself vulnerable to an attack on two fronts, with both Final Fantasy 16 and Diablo 4 also releasing in June.
Just a few days after Street Fighter 6 releases, Diablo 4 releases on June 6, 2023. A sequel that's been in the works for at least three years, Diablo 4 is one of the most anticipated games of the year, and its recent Beta has only cemented fans' excitement even further. But Diablo 4 isn't the only fantasy RPG releasing in June, with its own heavy competition coming on June 22, 2023 in the form of Final Fantasy 16.
Thankfully, Street Fighter 6 might be able to slide under the radar in a good way. Though its audiences are quite different, and some fans might intend to pick up both games, Diablo 4 and Final Fantasy 16 both offer expansive fantasy RPG experiences which presumably require a great deal of time from the player. While these two giants of the industry battle it out, Street Fighter 6 has its own special niche to offer its fans, that being the first big fighting title of the year.
It's been quite some time since the last Street Fighter game, and fan expectations are high. It also seems according to the trailers that Street Fighter 6 is trying to target a wider audience than ever before, with a new control scheme, new art style, and a slew of extra features designed to help newcomers to the franchise, and newcomers to the fighting genre as a whole. If Street Fighter 6 manages to pull off its highly ambitious premise and bring in both old fans and new, then it doesn't really need to worry about the rest of the games releasing in June as its fighting game gameplay sets it completely apart from the other big two titles dropping that month. Still, that might be a tall order.
Street Fighter 6 releases in 2023 on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
