Capcom is Patching Street Fighter 6 to Remove Incest

Did you know that Street Fighter 6 recently got a balance patch? It's easy to miss that because much of the Street Fighter discourse recently revolved around Alex and his relationship with Patricia.

In short, Alex's story mode revealed that he married and had a child with his cousin, who he knew since the moment she was born and considered to be his sister.

People immediately started making jokes about it, but is also sparked some genuine outrage. Some Alex fans were mad that their favorite fighting game character got 4 extra lines of storytelling (adding to existing 3), and most of those lines did not make him cooler. Much the opposite, in fact.

Some were disgusted and saw this as Capcom endorsing incest, which is definitely quite a take. As absurd as it sounds, the game admittedly doesn't show it in a negative light, instead framing the whole development as romantic and heartwarming.

While the silent majority seems to not care about the character background in a fighting game series with historically terrible writing, the complaints have reached Capcom and Takayuki Nakayama has commented on the issue on his X profile.

At some point the game will be patches to change some of the writing and better reflect the team's intention behind the story. In addition, Nakayama linked to the Street Fighter website, where they uploaded a short story that is meant to expand on the situation.

It's not clear what the takeaway is meant to be here, but the short story consists entirely of Tom drunkenly stumbling into a closed bar, ordering two drinks, and then having a one-sided conversation with his dead best friend, Alex's dad.

Much of it is dedicated to Tom describing how much Patricia adored Alex, and how protective Alex was of her. Perhaps the only part here that could've impacted the perception of their relationship is that in his teenage years Alex moved away for an unknown amount of time, and only returned when Patricia was in trouble, from which he proceeds to save her.

Perhaps growing up together and marrying a woman you grew up with and considered to be your sister is more normal if you don't talk with her for some years.

Regardless, Capcom would likely need a full rewrite if they want to avoid controversy. While people were largely outraged about incest, the way their relationship is presented in the story would make it questionable even if they had none of the shared ancestry.

Going from Alex holding Patricia in his arms when she was just a toddler to him wrapping his arms around her waist during their wedding is an absolutely diabolical way to frame the progression of their relationship.

Even as someone who cares very little about the story in Street Fighter, there is no way to fix this with a few rewrites when this one single image essentially has Alex transition from "this is my baby sister" to "this is a woman I want to marry and have kids with."

Regardless of biology, people growing up together will be considered a family by themselves and the world around them. In the end, Capcom might just be putting a bandaid on an issue that won't go away so easily.