Street Fighter V without mods

Besides the advantage of improved performance (on stronger hardware), another edge PC gamers have over console players are mods. These bits of community-made software are responsible for all the cool skins and tools that help enhance the overall player experience, but it seems like Capcom could be shutting the door on all that added Street Fighter V goodness soon.

On July 16, members of the FGC discovered that Capcom had added a 3rd-Party DRM to the game named CrackProof. What this software does is protect programs from illegal tampering and cracks that could render paid applications free to use. Many developers have used other 3rd-party apps like Denuvo or inhouse solutions like Riot's Vanguard to protect their games. Yet, this form of protection can be a double-edged sword as it will also prevent fans from including handy tools and mods. That means no more training tools, character mods, stage mods, etc. 

Considering the competitive fighting game scene has thrived thanks to training tools that have helped improve the pool of players in each game, it's understandable that many are upset. There's also the fact that we all love seeing the kinds of skins modders can introduce to the game. However, CrackProof also means it would be a lot harder for players to use cheats while playing online, improving the ranked experience.

Frame Trapped, is just one of many training tools that could cease to work once CrackProof goes live in the game. One of the first to learn of this change, the tool's creator Frame Trapped Tom brought the news to the community's attention. In an interview with Ernesto Lopez Jr on Button Check, he explained just how much of an effect CrackProof could have on the game. He called the move, "Careless and without any concern for what these tools actually do for the FGC." Watch the full interview in the YouTube video below.

This anti-cheat update comes over four years after the game's release, and with the game nearing the end of development, many in the FGC have asked, "why?" Early this year, a fan named Altimor created a mod that considerably improved the game's problematic netcode. It wasn't perfect, though, causing issues whenever PC players faced their PS4 counterparts, and Capcom eventually patched it out with the promise of an official fix. Fast forward half-a-year later, and fans are still waiting for the big fix.

The developer hasn't been sitting idle, though. For months Capcom did put in a lot of work to fix Street Fighter V's netplay, even asking for fan feedback with each update, but that was before the coronavirus pandemic, and now there's been scarcely any news regarding the fix. The ongoing Capcom Pro Tour Online 2020 event has also been marred by the poor netcode even though the event is split into a series of regionals.

It's only a matter of time before CrackProof gets to work, and we expect to see many of these training tools and mods start breaking. Capcom's reasoning and intended implementation of the anti-cheat software is unclear, but with Season 5's characters still on the way, fans will have to get used to having CrackProof around.