Summary
Fighting games have always had to struggle for mainstream attention. While they typically have an extremely tight grasp on their core base, they tend to struggle to attract interest outside of that base since the barrier of entry is simply too high for the uninitiated. However, with Soulcalibur 2, Namco stumbled upon a secret weapon: the guest character. Even those who had nevertranscended history and the world to engage in a story of swords and souls eternally retoldknew who Link was. And Link being added to the Gamecube version of Soulcalibur 2 absolutely turned heads. That’s the power of a guest character: people who don’t care about the genre are suddenly willing to pay attention.
I’m aware that Link wasn’t the first guest character in a fighting game, but he was the first one to make a big splash.
While the guest character has gradually become a staple in fighting games for that ability to appeal to a wide gamut of gamers, there have been a few holdouts, a few franchises that believed in their own family of characters enough to say ‘Nay, I shall not debase my roster with gimmicky, out-of-world inclusions.’ Chief among them was the Street Fighter series, “was” being the operative word here. As of this year’s Summer Games Fest show, that is no longer the case. If you haven’t heard already,Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui are set to join the Street Fighter 6 cast.
Before any of you start typing in the comments section, I don’t consider in-universe crossovers to be ‘guest characters’. Yes, Cody and Guy were in Final Fight before they appeared in Street Fighter, and Akira is originally from Rival Schools, but those games always existed in the same universe as Street Fighter, so their appearances in a mainline Street Fighter game made sense.
On the face of it, this is a pretty dignified first foray into the guest character space. While neither Terry nor Mai are Street Fighter characters, they are the core representatives of Fatal Fury, a series that was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, the creator of Street Fighter. Which sort of makes the Fatal Fury cast step-siblings of those Street Fighters, right? If Street Fighter is going to walk this path, surely this is the way to do it. But the question is,shouldthey walk this path?
Let’s deal in some hard numbers for a second. Across all core games in the series, there are 96 Street Fighters, not including the Street Fighter EX cast, who are owned by Arika. Street Fighter 6 currently has 22 characters, 23 with the impending release of M.Bison. While that batch of 96 characters isn’t universally beloved (go home Rufus, we all hate you), there are dozens of iconic characters adored by fans who aren’t currently on the roster.Capcom polled a massive 150,000 fans a few years back to rank the popularity of its characters, and a staggering21of the most popular 30 characters aren’t in Street Fighter 6 - that includes the twomostpopular characters (Sakura and Makoto).
But here’s the thing: Street Fighter 6’s characters take a ton of work to make. There are no reused animations, and the attention to detail is absurd, which is undoubtedly why each of the first two seasons has included just four new characters. Considering that the second season has now given two of those spots to rentals, Street Fighter 6 is only getting two new Street Fighter characters during the entire second season. Two spaces for the 74 unaccounted for characters to fill.
Gallingly, that means that by the end of the second season we’ll have twice as many Fatal Fury characters as Street Fighter 3 characters. What about the beloved Dudley and Makoto, neither of whom have made an appearance in the last decade? Nope. No room for them. We had to add the busty ninja and Hat Ken instead. Thank you for your long-term dedication and support, Third Strike fans, now go choke on your tears. Final Fight fans have it even worse with there not being a single member of the Final Fight crew in Street Fighter 6 (Kimberly being Guy’s student doesn’t count), and that is despite the game’s world tour mode primarily taking place in Final Fight’s Metro City. No Cody, no Rolento, no Guy, and most painfully, no Poison - Street Fighter’s extremely popular, lone trans character, who would have inarguably been a better choice to release over M. Bison given what month it is. What are we doing here?
Yes, you goblins, I know Terry plays very differently from Ken.The “Hat Ken” thing was a joke. I main Terry in a number of SNK games. I like Terry. Please don’t yell at me.
And this is where things get really dicey: once you open up that guest character box, you’ll never be able to shut it again. Their ability to grab eyeballs is just too powerful and they almost certainly sell well. The duo from Fatal Fury will not be the last guest characters to enter the world of Street Fighter. If four characters per season remains the norm, and I fully expect that to be the case, and if guest characters start taking half of those slots, how many spaces are even left for Street Fighters? Street Fighter 4 had four seasons of DLC, Street Fighter 5 had five, so, if Street Fighter 6 continues the trend, it will have six (quick maths). Does that mean we are only receivingeightmore Street Fighter characters after this season?
Are new characters out, then? Because Street Fighter 6 has some of the best new characters to appear in a new entry since, well, ever. So that would be a shame. Are we not going to get Sakura, Cody, or Sagat? Is there no room for fun characters like Dan, Hakan, or Sean? Are the fantastic Street Fighter 3 characters, like Makoto and Dudley, doomed to not make the roster? And what about the deep cuts? Street Fighter has a long history of giving the less appreciated characters another chance to shine. Are we not going to get a Sodom, or someone fun like a Geki? If there are only eight more slots available, something is going to have to give.
And what do we get in exchange for the dramatic reduction in Street Fighter characters being added to a Street Fighter game? One-time characters who don’t move the story forward? Glitzy gimmicks who feel incongruous in the world of Street Fighter? I’ve already heard calls for Cyclops and Killmonger to be added to the roster. I’d write more about that, but I just ate and I’m trying to keep my food down.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of Terry and Ken facing off against each other, but Capcom figured out the best way to do this decades ago: Crossover games. Give us Capcom Vs. SNK 3, Capcom. Don’t dothis.
Don’t kid yourself into thinking that the inclusion of guests will bring a bounty of new players to the franchise either. I’m sure their trailers will do massive numbers, and they’ll sell well, but they aren’t going to help Street Fighter break into a new market. Look at Mortal Kombat; NetherRealm has been loading its season passes with guest characters for years now, and while those guest character announcements always get attention, fans have long since grown frustrated with their favorite characters being neglected (especially when you have a season filled with Supermans). Looking at the player count of Mortal Kombat 1, it sure as hell doesn’t seem like those guest characters have brought in new fans.
And Soulcalibur? The series that is likely responsible for kicking off this whole damn trend? Despite becoming increasingly dedicated to securing big guest characters, interest in the series has dwindled over time. Soulcalibur now appears to be functionally dead. Obviously, we were never going to get every Street Fighter character we wanted in Street Fighter 6. With a pool of characters this deep, every Street Fighter roster has to make compromises, and there have always been winners and losers in this regard. But I can’t help but feel that the losers this time around will be the entire Street Fighter fanbase.
