During its Street Fighter 6 showcase, Capcom revealed the entire launch roster which includes 18 characters both of returning favorites and new fighters. The past couple days in general have been a boon of information regarding Street Fighter 6, with Capcom seemingly pulling the entire curtain back on what fans can expect to see at launch. Part of that decision is no doubt linked to some of the lessons Capcom learned during the launch period of Street Fighter 5, a game which many considered to be barebones at release with a major lack of communication from the developers to the community.
However, with Street Fighter 6 now under the care of director Takayuki Nakayama and producer Shuhei Matsumoto, Capcom has taken a completely different approach. At Tokyo Game Show, Capcom's showcase revealed a staggering amount of new information including the return of legacy characters like Ken and Blanka, the multiplayer focused Battle Hub, and an open world single player experience known as World Tour. As if that wasn't enough, a second livestream gave fans a look at the rest of the roster.
The Street Fighter 6 Special Program event offered fans another look at all of the newly announced content from the previous day, though for Matsumoto and Nakayama, it gave them another opportunity to share even more details that couldn't fit within Capcom's Tokyo Game Show event. A new trailer for the World Tour mode featured a voice-over and street art of the characters within Street Fighter 6. However, it revealed more characters that had yet to be mentioned officially by Capcom, though thanks to previous leaks, many fans may have seen them coming.
The art, some of which flashed by very quickly, also featured a signature of that particular character, so fans could match a name to the face. Capcom later announced the full roster of characters when Street Fighter 6 launches, putting the full roster at 18 in total. The full list includes a mix of new fighters like Marisa, Jamie, Manon, Kimberly, Lily, and JP, as well as the returning group of Ryu, Ken, Chun-li, Juri, Dee Jay, Cammy, E. Honda, Guile, Zangief, Luke, Blanka, and Dhalsim. With a huge roster to pick from thanks to a long legacy of Street Fighter titles, it stands to reason that Capcom has plenty more planned through eventual DLC.
Naturally, it was a lot of information for fans to take in. Thankfully, the other big piece of information to come out of TGS for Street Fighter 6 was the announcement of a beta test. The closed session will be limited when it launches on October 7, open only to those invited after signing up online. However, for those selected, the beta session will have a huge range of content available to play from the robust character creator, the Extreme Battle mode, Training, as well as the Battle Hub and the areas within it.
Street Fighter 6 is scheduled to release in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S
