Street Fighter V
Easily one of the premier competitive fighters out right now, Street Fighter V stands as a key pillar in the esports community. SFV broke records this year with its astounding 5065 entrants to the largest fighting game tournament globally, Evolution 2016. It has become so prominent that the grand finals for EVO 2016 were featured on ESPN2 and the streaming service WatchESPN. Regardless of its popularity, it can be difficult for someone who’s interested in the competitive scene to get into SFV due to a lack of presence on Twitch and sporadic tournaments, which is a problem for most competitive fighters. But even if they aren’t apparent, the resources are there and SFV can be one of the most hype-inducing esports to watch.
The age-old fighting game resource Shoryuken serves as a community hotspot for not only competitive SFV, but competitive fighters of all kinds. While their forums do require you to make a totally free account, it’s full of players who have been in the fighting game community for a very long time who are happy to help out anyone interested. The organization that provides the best resource for following SFV esports is actually the developer, Capcom. They created the Capcom Pro Tour, a series of international tournaments, as a means to not only reward competitive players that put in time to learn the game, but also for viewers wanting to keep up with the latest events. And not to worry, every major tournament is shown on Twitch, available to be watched live.
SFV is an action-packed game to watch and as such the commentators don’t have the time for in-depth explanations, however more often than not a player’s actions tend to speak for themselves. While there is terminology and advanced mechanics to learn, such as mix-ups and resets, the game is still fairly easy to understand and enjoy with basic level knowledge. Learning the strategies comes over time and the more you learn, the more impressive it all becomes. There are numerous SFV and general fighting game community groups on Facebook that are more than willing to teach, help, and discuss the game with anyone. Competitive SFV is very much about the community, and luckily, the game’s community is vast.
