It’s only what was playable in the latest beta, but I can imagine there might be more than a few developers feeling vindicated in their fears right about now.
Update: The article has been amended to remove the direct instructions, following your feedback. The remainder of the article is unedited, and the video remains online, and you view both below.
A hacked, offline-only version of the most recent SF5 beta that was playable on PC was posted on a mods forum yesterday for Street Fighter x Tekken.
That’s still not a bad smattering of content though. 12 characters are available: Ken, Ryu, Cammy, Nash, Birdie, Chun-Li, Necalli, the Dictator (that’s M. Bison, if you’re confused), Vega, Rashid, R. Mika and Karin.
The hacked beta is effectively only good for practising combos and beating up the AI, although it’s pretty efficient on the highest level. Mind you, that alone will be worth its weight in gold for many fighting game fans, who spend many hours practicing one frame links and various combos against dummy opponents in the corner of training stages.
I’ve recorded some video of the offline beta running on my PC. The offline beta also wanted to update something, but it seemed to take an age to download. In the interim, this was what I was able to muck around with:
So there you have it. If you’re super keen for the release of SF5 — and a lot of the FGC is, particularly given that the V-trigger system makes sense in a way that focus attacks (at least from a design perspective) never did — this might tide you over until Capcom decides to push out the next beta window.
Sure, you can only practice combos and beat up the AI for so long. But surely it beats grinding out a game on its last legs, right?
Comments
31 responses to “There’s A Hacked Version Of Street Fighter 5 Online”
Thanks! Can’t wait to try this out!
Every time I look at that cover image I can’t stop thinking of this.
though im sure some sneaky people may be grateful, but here’s an idea, DONT POST LINKS TO PIRATED CONTENT ON A GAMING FORUM!
I’m going to be the devil’s advocate here and say that this isn’t so bad. My friends and I are hardcore fighting game enthusiasts, and as Alex says; the beta is essentially practising combos/beating up the AI(and exploring the engine). Unlike the VS series, the combos aren’t extravagantly long, and so there’s even more of a focus on player vs player. PvP is the main game. From my understanding of this leaked beta… this isn’t an option. And even if it were, the end goal is still to fight other players… and so a dodgy version which has disabled online functionality is still going to be unappealing in the long term.
The negative presumption of a pirated copy is that it might take sales away from the video game company, but in this case I think it would just whet the appetite of the people that get it… like a demo or the beta that it actually is. Also it’s not hard to find things on the internet, so directly posting a link is only a minor enabler considering that you can achieve the same thing with a couple of seconds in Google.
There’s a fair argument to be made about directly advertising the links though, and I’m happy to acknowledge that which is why they’ve been removed. But your view, otherwise, is similar to my perspective and hence why I’m happy to write the story.
I’m sorry but you’re wrong.
Recently there was an uproar about ethics in journalism and while I don’t particularly fall into either of those two camps, this falls squarely under the category of ethics. When you’re dealing in the games industry, why should you be posting links to pirated material? I appreciate the fact they removed the links, but it’s still questionable.
It’s absolutely no different to saying “I burnt myself a copy of a game I got off kickass so I could practice before I could buy it.”
It’s not a negative presumption of a pirated copy, it *is* a pirated copy. The game is not released yet, it hasn’t been paid for, it is by very definition a *pirated copy*. Stop being apologetic over it. While Alex doesn’t need to be hauled over the coals over it, there’s no need to be jumping to it’s defense either.
I’m sorry but YOU’RE wrong.
I have played fighting games for over 10 years. Closer to 20, and probably more than that. I know the scene well. I know the genre well. How about you? Read my post again. I’m NOT condoning pirated material. I’m NOT saying it’s good. I’m not saying it’s exactly bad either. With fighting games, it’s about fighting other players. That is the main market. Ono has already announced new characters that are scheduled to be released post-launch. In a competitive fighter, people will need to buy a copy to stay competitive. Maybe some casual people will just enjoy some short-term fun fighting the computer, but they could do that in the beta anyway. The ACTUAL damage comes from how many sales are lost. Maybe sales will be lost as a result of this. Or maybe they will INCREASE. Hard to tell. It’s not justifying piracy, it’s just saying it’s hard to tell.
So let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume a casual player/reader of Kotaku reads this article and decides to download the pirated BETA. A permanent version of the game that people could download and play for free for a few days anyway. The links are now removed. They open Google and find said links. They download it. They get their kick out of the pirated beta and decide not to buy the game. The damage isn’t from the direct links; the damage comes from knowing that it exists. The article is more damaging than the links. Removing the links won’t stop someone who wants to do that.
Or you could assume the best. Someone reads the article, downloads the beta, practices their $#!+ and perfects their one frame links or whatever, enjoys the game and buys it to stay competitive, gets their friends into it, goes to Evo and beats Poongko or whoever.
So yeah, I don’t think it’s a big deal. Maybe it’s bad form to post links, sure. But as I said, it’s a minor enabler.
Not once have you provided any actual factual reason to me ‘being wrong’. Let’s introduce more effective reasoning as to why I’m right.
The time-limit has been removed. This was a conditional aspect of the beta and has been removed, by doing this, the coding has been changed and the game is now open without a time limit. The only decent argument here was from Alex, not you, which was the archival situation which is a fair cop. However to this extent, it was never meant to be presented to the public in the manner it is here. By editing the program it’s no longer in its original form. How is this hard to understand?
I don’t care how long you’ve played, that’s pure wankery. Who cares. Let’s go on with the wankery. 30+ years here since Yi Arr Kung Fu graced my local in 1985. Done. Who cares? What does that part accomplish?
You have too much assumption in your post. Sorry dude. Way too much.
Enjoy going on, there’s no real point.
Actually you started this by saying I was wrong, like your viewpoint is the only correct thing in the world? Let me reiterate in point format so you might understand this time:
1. This is incomplete. The pirated beta isn’t even a beta. It’s a shadow of a beta. If you think about Star Wars: Battlefront… the game is only multiplayer. The beta allowed you to fight other players and see what the game would actually be like. Imagine if there were no other players. Then what? You run around and see what the maps are like, how engine mechanics like different blasters behave, etc. Pretty $#!+. Same deal. It’s somewhere along the lines of seeing more than the trailer of SW: TFA, like the first 30mins of the movie. If you can see the first 30m of a movie and that’s enough for you, then good for you. But seriously, that’s stupid. It’s a very different to having a full bootleg copy of SW: TFA as one is a complete fundamental experience and the other is not.
2. Direct links are a minor enabler vs the knowledge of it existing. If I said “there’s free GyG burritos in Brisbane!”, how hard do you think it would be for someone to find out where that was? Answer: Not very. Open Google, type it in, hit enter. If you think it is hard, you probably support the Australian internet filter in all its glory.
I’m not wrong on either of those points. Yet you told me I was wrong and downvoted me. That makes you wrong. Is it WRONG to participate in bootleg activities, even if it’s partial? Sure. That’s a different matter though. When Marvel vs Capcom 3 came out, my friends got a leaked version of the full game about a week early. That could have been very damaging to Capcom and I didn’t agree with it. I’m sure that there were probably some individuals out there that didn’t buy the game as a result of that. Just because my friends all bought copies when it was released, and I personally bought multiple copies doesn’t change that fact. That is a VERY different scenario compared to a PvP-disabled beta. Maybe you’re so holier-than-thou that this is unacceptable, but to me I just look at it and go “lulwhut? It’s not so bad, everyone who wants the game is still going to buy it”.
Bringing up my years of experience with the FGC/the scene is relevant because I fully understand the meat-and-potatoes importance of PvP and what makes players tick whereas it seemed like you did not. I could tell that Alex gets it; training mode is invaluable to fighting game players. Feel free to downvote me again.
Will do, nice strawmanning btw about the links, the issue is moreso about a gaming website actually hosting those links, I’m sorry you’re absolutely too daft to understand that. Wether or not someone can google is 100% irrelevant to the point, 100%.
And again unfortunately, no, your years on the ‘fighting scene’ again are pure wankery, that’s all it is, just self aggrandizement. Have a great one.
My original posts remain unedited and I reiterated the same points. You are the one strawmanning and inventing $#!+ in your head that I didn’t say and then subsequently condemning me on said presumption. Then I’m daft. Right. You’re either delusional or trolling, and I don’t particularly care either way.
I guess you’re just ignorant. Enjoy the bliss.
whilst i do agree with your view in relation to the usefulness of this beta, a publisher unintended release such as this, in such a trainwreck state, for some, can make the difference between a preorder, and an “ill skip this one”. Unfortunately there are many folks out there that do not understand the difference between a beta and a final release.
not to mention that ethically, sites like Kotaku should be condemning this practice. I fully support them writing about it, as i do believe its newsworthy, but providing a direct link is somewhat a bit suss.
Yeah and that’s on me, and hence the update. And @weresmurf is entirely fine in saying what they did as well (although I do appreciate the centrist line at the end, cheers).
Allllllllllllllthough you want to yell at me directly, you’re more than welcome to do so! An error is an error, after all. Mind you, I think there are some merits to this from archival perspectives, PC users and the fact that this is a special build of the game that will never exist ever again (future betas will have different, amended content).
That and it’s also done using the cache that is sitting in people’s Steam folders right now — and the fact that somebody was able to take a Steam beta and turn it into a playable offline thing is very, very interesting and something developers might take a lot of notice of. But the links shouldn’t have been up. Sorry.
No hard feelings Alex! again, nothing personal, just thought it was a bit odd that you guys would share a direct link. But yeah you are right, it is quite interesting what they’ve done with it.
TBH, I’ve personally never been a fan of Alphas & Betas, and miss the days where we could just grab a demo of almost every game that we could test out before deciding to spend our cash.
I remember a time when most demos would be available about a month before release. and those pc powerplay demo discs…
Thinking back to that kind of makes me think that the shareware days were largely the 80/90’s equivalent of alphas/betas that we have today, it just wasn’t acknowledged as such. And the pricing model was very different, too.
Guy that helps run Melbourne’s FGC here. There is most definitely still an audience for Street Fighter 4, and there may be one for a while after SFV’s launch. We tend to keep the old and busted games alive alongside the new hotnesses.
Matter of fact, USF4 is headlining the Southern Cross Championships in Adelaide this weekend.
Yeah, nobody’s saying USF4 is dead or anything. But competitively once SF5 comes out there’s going to be a huge crossover and that’ll have an impact. It always does.
In my experience there are always teething problems between generations of a game. SFV will bring in more new players, certainly, but the old guard stuck in their ways will take time to convert. Here in Melbourne it was only a few years ago we made the call to drop Street Fighter 3 from tournaments, and even now it still gets play at our casual events.
Old fighting games aren’t so much put in retirement homes, as they are put out to stud.
There are tournaments held for games all around the country but that doesn’t mean they’re well attended. Hell, just because Street FIghter 3 was dropped didn’t mean it had a presence worth mentioning in the same sentence as Marvel, MK9, SF4, SSF2 Turbo, Smash, or what have you. And casual events are just that — casual, which isn’t really what people are focusing on for SF5.
I do get where you’re coming from. USF4 will still be around. People will still play it. It’ll probably be side by side for the first few months. The USF4 tournament will still get a lot of people playing from the SF5 bracket. But people actively practicing USF4 will drop off significantly once SF5 is out. The community will suffer.
Also, it doesn’t make much sense to say that a USF4 tournament is being held this weekend; tournaments will continue to run. But maybe for someone who isn’t competing in those tournaments, but is interested in the launch of SF5, it might make more sense to get some practice with this to get a better head start once SF5 launches.
Anyway.
Also worth noting: this argument entirely ignores the fact that we’re dealing with the PC port exclusively.
That has an impact that talking about the FGC and what happens to older fighting games ignores entirely, at least in terms of the gamer’s experience. Tournaments might not be an option for them because they’re still playing on a keyboard, so messing around with the latest game might be more appealing to them too.
Marvel vs Capcom 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. My friends and I were hardcore players, but when they got their hands on an early leak of MvC3, nobody played 2(we all bought legit copies of MvC3 when it was released). I still love the game, but most of us made the switch to 3 and rarely did we play 2. Then UMvC3 came out, and NOBODY touched MvC3. MvC3 is so similar to UMvC3 but obsolete, so MvC3 has almost zero appeal now… whereas MvC2 is a very different game and still gets played by people(though nobody in my area).
“Grinding out a game on its last legs” is a bit disingenuous because a game which is established to be good/fun doesn’t cease being that when a new game comes out, and grinding implies monotony while last legs implies death. Fighting games are actually pretty good for seeing how the scene moves on… like Injustice, KI and MK were explored by my friends, but a lot of them went back to the Mahvel crack after the novelty wore off. In terms of SFV, I’m sure that most of the scene will transition to it when it comes out… especially with the promise of future content and Capcom’s track record.
Yeah and the reception it’s had already at tournaments. Capcom’s moves to make it more accessible are going a long way too.
Seriously Kotaku, this is pirate content. Why the fuck would you be posting this? Like, seriously. Wow.
So serious question… are you either blacklisted by Capcom already, or looking to be blacklisted by Capcom now? This is seriously a poor choice of article. I know some might like the idea of having access to this, but you’re advertising pirated material publicly Kotaku after condemning the practice in so *many* different articles…
It’s not so much they’re telling everyone about it, it’s the fact they’re giving everyone a bloody link directly to it.
That’s a fair enough criticism, and after discussion and going through the feedback the instructions/links have been removed. An update’s posted just after the jump.
So, author seems to be ok with arguing with a commentator about the validity of USF4 in FGCs but is conspicuously silent about the whole “posting pirate content” comment?
Hold on, I’ve only just got into the office. (Everything else I responded to was before I left the house.)
All right, an update’s been posted and I’ve responded directly elsewhere in comments above.
While i agree that the direct link should not have been posted, I don’t think it’s correct to equate this with piracy. Piracy assumes one is getting for free that which should cost money. But this is an open beta – that is to say a build of the game intended to be handed out for free so that potential flaws can be discovered prior to release. It was never intended to, nor will be, sold for money.
In addition, it only includes a limited amount of content from the full game. In essence, it is a time-limited demo, and someone has made a small mod simply to remove said time limit.
As such, I really can’t see this having any negative effect on the game.
Except that its NOT an open beta, to gain access legitimately you need to preorder the game on steam.
CAPCOM BLACKLISTING INCOMING!!!