Street Fighter 5's beta is coming back, but a bit more carefully this time

The Street Fighter 5 PS4 beta is starting up again, but very, very tentatively. Capcom is kicking off the first of two European stress tests for the SF5 beta, and if all goes according to plan, more tests will begin in North America and Asia soon after.

The first test begins at 4 pm BST and will run through midnight, and the second will run through the same window on Friday. You can play using the beta app from the suspended Street Fighter 5 test, but these are still separate from Capcom's proper beta plans; only when all the stress tests have concluded favorably will the regular beta run for its five-day window.

The company says it expects these tests to offer players a "smoother experience" than the first beta attempt (which rarely let people connect to online matches) but there may still be some issues. Capcom sold beta access as a pre-order bonus for Street Fighter 5 in North America, so beyond collecting play data, it is pretty important that it makes good on the offer.

Meanwhile, Street Fighter executive producer Yoshinori Ono continues to apologize profusely about the entire situation on Twitter. Poor, sad action figure Blanka.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

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