Street Fighter 6’s big reveal is just over two weeks away, and fans are clamoring for every piece of information they can get before its release. Capcom, in recognition of this, recently held an event Q&A live broadcast addressed the many questions people had about the upcoming title.
These pre-selected questions ranged from asking if Capcom would include a jukebox mode in Street Fighter 6 to the main identity of the developers, and during the session, game director Takayuki Nakayama and producer Shuhei Matsumoto also discussed the development process. One question asked who was the most difficult character to design, and luckily, they answered for both returning fighters and newcomers.
As far as newcomers go, Street Fighter 6’s roster has some pretty complex characters. A fighter like JP uses Psycho Power and fights with a cane using abilities such as full-screen command grabs, spikes visible from the ground, and gaps that can be placed on the screen and not only act as projectiles, but also enable it. teleport to their positions.
Despite the presence of JP, the development team actually seems to be tackling a different and unpredictable character.
“Designing Kimberly out of the new characters was particularly challenging,” the developers said through a translator. “The concept was really early on, but it was hard to get down to a concrete direction [for her]. This concept is an American ninja-style character and [we] I even thought a cyber ninja might work, but in the end we ended up with Kimberly, who we have now.”
Among the returning world fighters now is a fighter like Dee Jay, who still has a few of his trademark tools, but has an almost entirely new playstyle and what he can do in Street Fighter 6. the hardest to design, right? No. The real answer to that question is classic Street Fighter contender Chun-Li.
“When it comes to legacy characters, Chun-Li was probably the hardest because so many people love him and everyone’s ideal Chun-Li is a little different,” the developers said. “Many designers had their own ideas, but it was difficult for Chun-Li to come to an agreement.”
This iteration of Street Fighter sees Chun-Li with a new approach added to her gameplay. Although he can still hit Spinning Bird Kicks and hit Kikokens, Chun in Street Fighter 6 is now a stance character with a steeper learning curve than players are usually used to with him.
It’s certainly surprising that Chun-Li is the hardest of the returning characters to design, but we heard something similar from Street Fighter 6 art director Kaname Fujioka back in December. In an interview with GameInformer, Fujioka noted that creating Chun’s new look was particularly difficult because one of her original creators was one of her mentors – likely referring to legendary Capcom artist Akira “Akiman” Yasuda.
“She was probably one of the most difficult characters to design with that name, especially since one of the original creators of Chun-Li is one of my teachers,” Fujioka said via Game Informer. “I definitely want to honor that and make a version of Chun-Li that is suitable for Street Fighter 6.”
During the Q&A broadcast, Capcom shared other interesting tidbits about the game’s design process, such as how Jamie will be a very different character than he was in the end. In the early stages, Jamie might have been a fighter more akin to Tekken’s Lei Wulong or Jackie Chan, but he became a young drunken boxer/breakdancer who wanted to keep the streets safe.
Street Fighter 6 is set to release on June 2, 2023. It will be available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PC.