The new and final expansion of Street Fighter V, Champion Edition, has been the most positively hyped edition yet. Despite this, it's release was plagued by an issue that had haunted the game since it first launched in 2016: bad netcode.
Netcode issues have rendered the online gameplay extremely buggy on the best of days, and fans were forced to solve the issue. Capcom has responded but at the cost of the fans who had tried to fix the issue in the first place. Now Street Fighter V's legacy may be more about its many problems than its actual fighting engine.
Yoga Teleport
When playing online, many players have reported the issue of "teleporting," in which the lag in netcode keeps it from syncing up with the command inputs. The result is that characters seemingly jump from one action to the next as if they have super speed. Thankfully, a Redditor named Altimor released a mod for the PC version of the game which would better sync up the gameplay with the players' inputs, eliminating the teleporting issue. While the "fix" had its own problems, such as giving PC gamers an advantage in cross-play, it showed the dedication of fans in trying to make the game's basic features actually work.
Capcom themselves finally addressed the issue with the release of an official netcode adjustment for both system's versions of the game. The actual usefulness of this patch has so far been questionable, but it has had one definite effect. PC users who have the fan patch installed are being locked out of the game, and are unable to even launch the game at all unless the fan mod is removed entirely. The problem that Capcom supposedly tried to fix appears to still exist, while the fan solution has become a problem itself because of it.
Patchwork Gameplay
Bad netcode has been an issue for Street Fighter V for a while now. As far back as its launch, the game had hit-and-miss consistency online. This may be because Capcom didn't make the online components themselves and instead outsourced P2P networking to a Korean mobile company. Beyond bad online play, however, the game was first maligned for its barebones release. When it first launched four years ago, Street Fighter V lacked much in the way of single-player content. Genre staples such as an Arcade Mode were notoriously missing, and the game's cinematic Story Mode wasn't available upon release, either. DLC for the Story Mode would soon be released, which was the only mode where certain characters could be used for a while. The fact that these characters had been announced as DLC added insult to injury. Other, smaller controversies involved the game's female characters. R. Mika's redesign in the game accentuated her sexuality, with certain animations for her and Cammy eventually being censored for their provocative nature.
Thankfully, upon receiving more characters and additional play options such as Arcade Mode, Street Fighter V began its path to become a respectable title in the legendary franchise. Unfortunately, a continually disappointing netcode has kept its online play from being as good as it should be. Hopefully, Capcom keeps the issue from happening again when it's time for Street Fighter VI.
Street Fighter V: Champion Edition is available now.