Street Fighter 6 got a demo showcasing the World Tour mode as well as some of the characters, so you know we had to try it out.

The demo lets us create a character and experience the World Tour introduction, as well as giving us access to Luke and Ryu for single matches. There is unfortunately no online play available in the demo, only a short trailer showcasing the mode.

The World Tour gives us some insight into Luke’s story as a trainer as well as some development into what will most likely be our rival, Bosch. Bosch is well-designed and fits the setting well; his outfit has a lot of detail, and his personality hints at some personal troubles.

Sadly, I’m assuming that he will be a World Tour exclusive character since his move set mirrors our Create-A-Character. Hopefully I’m wrong and he does make it to the main roster as Downloadable Content.

The World Tour lets us explore a small part of Metro City and introduces us to some new characters who will accompany us throughout the story mode. The player can fight pretty much anyone on the street, with the explanation that times are peaceful now, but the hard times people suffered at the hands of Bison and his gang made everyone in the city a somewhat competent fighter.

The street brawls happen right where the NPC is challenged, and you can see people gathering around to watch the fight. Each passerby has a level attached to them, so you can slowly grind your character by fighting stronger opponents.

We only get to play the first 30 minutes of the World Tour mode, and the demo ends right before teasing an encounter with Chun-Li, whom we can study under to learn some new moves. The created character has some special moves similar to Luke’s but feels somewhat incomplete with no supers or gimmicks.

This will most likely be remedied as soon as we are able to choose a mentor, but it’s a shame that we don’t get to see it during the demo. The demo ends with Bosch storming off. I can only assume he will fall down some dark path while looking for power, becoming either a villain or a rival to our character.

The single matches only give us access to Luke and Ryu, both pretty standard fighters who don’t have anything too special going on. The game’s new systems do make for some really interesting gameplay, though. The new drive system gives us access to multiple moves, from parries to offensive moves with armor, but using them may leave the character exhausted and open to being stunned.

There’s definitely a component of strategy when it comes to using these moves, and I’m sure the professional players will have a field day mastering the many systems present in Street Fighter 6.

The game now comes with two control schemes as well as an assist mode. Classic lets players use the classic motions to do their super moves, while modern lets players use a button combination like Triangle + Circle instead. It makes the game feel a lot closer to something like modern Mortal Kombat, and I’m sure purists will disapprove of it.

There are also commentators that can be assigned to the matches; we have access to Aru and Jeremy “Vicious” Lopez in the demo, and we can add subtitles to their narration as well as make them root for a specific player. The system seems to have a lot of adaptative dialogue and has callouts for character-specific interactions, so it won’t get old fast.

Street Fighter 6 is looking solid for both casual and hardcore players, and the World Tour story mode seems to be a fun and unique story that explores the characters way better than Street Fighter 5’s half-baked story mode did.

Street Fighter 6 is set to release on June 2nd, 2023, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows (through Steam).