The Street Fighter series is quickly approaching its 40th anniversary, and there’s a ton of characters we’ve seen come and go over that time — as well as more who haven’t gotten the chance to really fight yet.
A treasure of the fighting game community, HiFight, recently had the chance to interview Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama and Producer Shuhei Matsumoto about the current season of the game and some of what they’re building up to in the future.
This discussion took place at the Thailand Game Show just before C. Viper’s release, so they talk a good bit about the latest character finally returning to the series.
Like they’ve mentioned previously, Capcom wanted to keep the more technical aspects of Viper for the crowd that enjoyed her like that while also trying to broaden her appeal a bit to the wider playerbase.
“She was a very technical character in Street Fighter 4, so we kept those technical aspects to make her enjoyable for players who loved her back then,” said Nakayama. “And we also added a move called Focus Force similar to the Focus attack from Street Fighter 4, to add that element to her design.”
HiFight does bring up, though, that Capcom did make C. Viper easier to control in some ways like her feint cancel shortcuts in Street Fighter 6
“The most exciting thing is that a lot of Street Fighter 4 players are coming back, and since C. Viper is such a great character, many people are drawn into her appearance and background and want to try her out,” continued Matsumoto. “That makes us really happy. I think players can feel the character’s charm. She’s probably tough to play, but she’s very rewarding. So it feels great.”
While this is neat to hear, it would have also been cool to hear more of their thoughts on Viper now that she’s been making waves with players for a little while now.
Since they were in Thailand, HiFight of course had to ask the head developers about Sagat’s inclusion in Street Fighter 6 as well where it sounds like they had to go through some more trial and error with his implementation.
“In Street Fighter 6, with the parry system, using projectiles is quite tricky. He has Ground Tiger Shot and Tiger Shot for high and low projectiles, but we felt that we needed to add some new elements to his gameplay,” said Nakayama. “So we added new kick moves and designed him to be able to fight effectively at mid-range.”
“He’s a character that changed quite a bit during development. Adding clinch moves to Super Art 2 was decided from the beginning, but he evolved a lot through playtesting and adjustments.”
Nakayama also confirms that Sagat’s stage in Street Fighter 6 is in a different location than his old arenas, but there’s unfortunately no mention of the famous Yipes meme attached to the Buddha statue, which is being modded into the game.
“Yes, unlike the reclining Buddha in Street Fighter 2 or Alpha, in Street Fighter 4’s story, Sagat moved to a more rural area with a sprawling countryside, so this stage is an extension of that and a different location from SF2,” said Nakayama.
HiFight asked if we’ll see any other Thai fighters appear in Street Fighter 6, and while it doesn’t sound like Adon is coming back any time soon, they do discuss a bit of their aim for the future.
“Well, we made characters like ‘Nampueng’ with that in mind though there’s no guarantee she’ll be playable in SF6,” said Nakayama. “Maybe in 7. Well who knows who’ll make it in 7? We’re thinking about the future. Actually since Street Fighter 5, we’ve been nurturing Nampueng as a character we want to develop.”
Between Sagat’s protege and Li-Fen among others, it sounds like Capcom wants to lean more into that master-disciple role in the future, which we’ve already seen a bit of through fighters like Ed and Kimberly too.
Nakayama jokes, however, that Fatal Fury already beat them to the punch on that front with characters like Preecha, Rock and Hokutomaru in City of the Wolves.
You can check out the full interview between HiFight and the developers below where they also talk about the recent V-Rivals event with Justin Wong and Betty along with the Capcom Pro Tour’s present and future with offline tournaments.