Capcom deems its own 'Street Fighter V' stage too distracting for pros
The 2016 Street Fighter V season is coming to a close and Capcom has banned one of its stages from the final tournament and the 2017 season.
Street Fighter V downloadable content stage "Skies of Honor" has been deemed too distracting for competition. It's been banned for the next year, including the 2016 main event, the Capcom Cup.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Skies of Honor was released by Capcom on Nov. 8, turning the wings of an airplane owned by the character Rashid into a fighting arena. While the stage itself stays steady and horizontal, the background tilts and moves constantly as the plane flies over Dubai.
You May Also Like
Take a look the stage and decide for yourself how disorienting it is:
Professional SFV player Keoma Pacheco wrote about his issues with Skies of Honor, noting that it should not be used in the professional space. It seems like Capcom took note of criticisms like Pacheco's and pulled the map out of rotation in the Capcom Pro Tour.
Pulling stages from professional rotation isn't completely unheard of. Street Fighter V's own "Kanzuki Family Beach" stage isn't in the rotation for pro matches either, as Capcom noted in a statement given to Mashable.
Similar to the Kanzuki Family Beach stage in Street Fighter V, the Skies of Honor stage represents a new creative direction from the development team and features background effects that may be distracting for competitive tournament play. For that reason, we will remove it from the list of approved stages on the Capcom Pro Tour and the upcoming Capcom Cup. We hope that our non-tournament players continue to appreciate and enjoy this stage and the unique visual experience it provides.
Many Super Smash Bros. tournaments only allow certain stages to be played, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments only allow teams to pick from a short list of existing maps. It's not often that the developers themselves pull maps and stages from rotation, though.
The 2016 Capcom Pro Tour concludes with the Capcom Cup on Dec. 2-3 in Anaheim, California.
