Street Fighter 5 Announces New Characters, Including Akira From Rival Schools

Capcom held a Street Fighter Summer Update livestream today where the developers announced four of the five new characters joining Street Fighter 5 in the upcoming Season 5 of content. The new Street Fighters include Dan, the long time Street Fighter mainstay who last appeared in Street Fighter 4; Rose, who was introduced in Street Fighter Alpha and also made her last appearance in Street Fighter 4; Oro, who hasn't been seen as a playable character in Street Fighter since his one appearance in Street Fighter 3; and Akira Kazama, who is jumping over to Street Fighter from Rival Schools, a 1997 3D fighting game for the PlayStation One. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=street-fighter-5-season-5-dlc-characters&captions=true"] The Street Fighter series is no stranger to having characters from other Capcom series crossover into it, but Akira is an interesting pick as she is the first character from Rival Schools to make an appearance in a Street Fighter game, outside of Sakura who originated as a Street Fighter character. No footage of Akira in Street Fighter 5 was shown, but Street Fighter 5 Director Takayuki Nakayama said: "The battles in Rival Schools have something unique about them that we also want to incorporate." Producer Shuhei Matsumoto added that they have some unique Rival Schools gimmicks planned as well. The only character that we did get an in-progress look at was Dan, who is as you'd expect: appropriately goofy. He still stumbles a bit when he tries to throw an opponent, his Gadoken still peters out after going just a short distance, and he of course still has his rolling taunts. Nakayama-san and Matsumoto-san also shared a Street Fighter 5 Season 5 roadmap that details the next year of content drops. Dan will release in Winter 2020 along with the Capcom Pro Tour 2021 stage, and an update that changes up the battle balance and adds a new battle mechanic. That substantial update will be followed by Rose in Spring 2021, then Oro and Akira in Summer 2021, and capped off with an unannounced character in Fall 2021, along with the next Capcom Pro Tour Stage and another change to the battle balance. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/11/18/street-fighter-v-champion-edition-announcement-trailer"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Mitchell Saltzman is an Editorial Producer at IGN who is a lifelong fan of fighting games and is very sad that Makoto is still not part of Street Fighter 5.