Street Fighter 6 will welcome Fatal Fury’s Terry Bogard into the roster tomorrow on September 24, but the game update to the fighting game will also include one new mode: Li-Fen’s V-Rival.
Li-Fen’s V-Rival allows you to fight AI bots with specific criterias which you can choose. The ctiteria includes what League Rank, what character they main, what playstyle and more.
What’s interesting is that these AI bots are trained from data accrued from millions of players’ Ranked Matches in Street Fighter 6. Developer Capcom is using AI in the same way all those generated-AI that’s been the buzzwords these days are using. But at least the training data are all sourced properly (players can consent to allow Capcom to use their gameplay data), and is used to create meaningful content. If done right, you can face AI bots that’s exactly at your level of play and to get your groove before facing other players, or a useful tool to train against specific match-ups without having a human training partner.
SF6’s idea of AI bots is slightly different to what we’ve seen in Tekken 8 earlier this year, which learns the playstyle of the player and allows other players to challenge their AI bot.
It doesn’t seem that you can specifically challenge a V-Rival of a specific player. But like in Tekken 8, you can fight against yourself, your own V-Rival, trained on data of your online matches.
In V-Rival matches, Lin-Fen can also offer feedback on what you did well and what you need to improve on.
The idea of AI in the mainstream is currently met with disdain as the use case of generated-AI for the average user is terrible. But these sort of AI advancements, where bots can replicate or enhance game interactions without needing another human, is where this tech makes perfect sense.
Outside of fighting games, Gran Turismo 7 has incoporated enhanced AI drivers into the game. These AI drivers are trained using data from online play, similiar to how SF6 is doing here.
Li Fen’s V-Rival will be accessible in Street Fighter 6 via the Battle Hub. This mode will be available on September 24.
Street Fighter 6 is out now on PS4, PS5, PC (Steam) and Xbox Series X|S. Check out our review of the game here.