I have to be honest with you all here; this situation is an instance of the world proving that it’s capable of creating a better comedy than any single person on this Earth is capable of writing. But, while I’m certainly a proponent of acknowledging the capabilities of the universe, it also leaves me upstream without a paddle, so to speak; there is nothing I could possibly write here that could further lampoon this state of affairs more than it does on its own.
On what appears to be an unofficial (despite what the parentheses may tell you) Street Fighter 6 fan group on Facebook, a member wasted no time lambasting Eternity, a flamboyant new character to the series who seems to serve as a host-esque NPC of sorts; vanilla homophobia, nothing special here.
But then they complained about “woke controls,” a concept that, just within the last couple of minutes writing this article, I’ve lost a record number brain cells trying to comprehend.
Indeed, I’m not sure whether Street Fighter 6 is introducing some brand new control scheme to go alongside Modern, Classic, and Dynamic, or if the folks over at Capcom have somehow figured out to make controller configurations socially aware of the discrimination and hardships faced by racial, gender, and sexual minorities. Not sure why they’re busy making another Street Fighter if their engineering abilities have reached those levels, though.
I genuinely don’t want to comment too much on this, since any attempt to dissect what “woke controls” even means would pale in comparison to any real explanation from the original complainant. Of course, it’s safe to assume that they’ll be taking the nuances of that particular grievance to their grave, so while I’m saddened I’ll never learn the “why,” it’s probably for the best that they speak as little as possible from now on anyway.
Before I take my leave, however, I’d like to point out that they began this spiel by saying “with all seriousness.” I hope that helps contextualize things, however that contextualization takes shape for you.
Street Fighter 6 will release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on June 2.