Street Fighter V producer Yoshinori Ono has discussed how the development team approaches feedback on the game’s broader issues, such as the sexualisation of female characters.
Speaking in an interview with GameSpot, Ono was asked about the responsibilities game developers have, given the raised awareness surrounding issues of representation in games, and the industry’s attempts to be more inclusive.
Ono responded by highlighting changes Capcom implemented to tone down aspects of the game that were criticised for gratuitously objectifying female characters.
“You may have seen sometime ago, for R. Mika’s Critical Art cutscene, the camera angle was changed a bit, and we made some other changes with how the camera angles worked with the characters. That was one of our answers to some of this feedback,” he said.
“We want everyone to be able to enjoy playing this game. We don’t want anything offensive in there; we want everyone to be able to enjoy the game as much as possible. So we’re working to be able to provide a friendly environment for everyone.”
Ono added that not everyone responds positively to Capcom making changes such as these, and revealed that some “hardcore fans attack [his] Twitter account with lots of F-bombs.”
He continued, saying although Capcom is responding to feedback on broader issues beyond game balance and frame data, it has a firm grasp on the identity of its storied fighting game franchise and will ensure it is not compromised.
“The message we want to provide for our hardcore fans is that we are cognizant of the series’ identity, and we are going to make sure that the Street Fighter identity is in place. We may be making more adjustments moving forward, but the fighting experience, the battle, is the same.”
On January 25, Capcom announced Street Fighter 5 will receive a free, expanded story mode in June. This will feature over an hour of “cinematic content” and fill in the storyline between Street Fighter IV and the new game.
Street Fighter V will launch on PlayStation 4 and Steam on February 16.
