Iconic characters like Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li are the faces of Street Fighter, but the series has always included a diverse cast of outlandish fighters. We spoke with executive producer Yoshinori Ono about the process of crafting the combatants and making familiar faces feel fresh again for the newest entry in the legendary fighting series.

This article was originally published in issue 275 of Game Informer.

Here Come Some New Challengers

The way a fighting game plays is of utmost importance, but with hardcore players pouring thousands of hours into gaining an intimate familiarity with their favorite characters, the roster carries undeniable weight. This makes implementing a well-rounded cast of fighters essential. The Street Fighter series excels at this, consistently delivering games full of characters with diverse abilities, looks, and personalities.

This is largely thanks to Street Fighter’s ability to introduce compelling new combatants regularly. Though the classic fighters will always receive more love and attention from the fanbase, the new challengers breathe fresh life into the franchise.

EXPANDING THE ROSTER More returning characters are coming to Street Fighter V’s roster by way of downloadable content. The decision was made that players will never need to buy a new disc-based product or upgrade pack in order to avoid using Street Fighter IV’s disc-based update methods. “We’re trying to match users’ lifestyles and where the culture is heading,” says executive producer Yoshinori Ono. “That’s what we’re really trying to accomplish with the service model approach.” When the characters release, players have the option to earn characters in-game rather than buy them through accomplishing certain goals. So far, Capcom has revealed Balrog (Boxer), Guile, Alex, Ibuki, Urien, and Juri.

According to Ono, the process of introducing a new character can be a difficult and stressful one, with fears that the new faces won’t fit in with the rest of the roster, or that they’ll feel wrong for the game. However, the team has a long pedigree of successful over-the-top characters to fall back on, which galvanizes the team when brainstorming new ideas.

“We could be scared of new and different things, but at Street Fighter we have kind of a tradition of having really outlandish characters suddenly appear,” he says. “That’s actually something that we go for because those are most of the characters that really end up sticking with people and they end up falling in love with. In the long run, those are the characters that end up having a lot of longevity and more of a chance of sticking around in the series.”

Street Fighter is popular all across the globe, and the team often looks at underrepresented regions when creating a new character. From there, the characters are crafted to ensure they have significance in the story. The example Ono gives is the Korean character Juri, who made her introduction in Super Street Fighter IV. Juri is the first Korean character to appear in the series, and the intention was to represent the many fighting game fans in Korea through this character.

In Street Fighter V, the team approached the new characters with these same ideas. Each of the four new characters – Necalli, Rashid, Laura, and F.A.N.G – were created to appeal to the worldwide player base either through their origin or new fighting style. Necalli and F.A.N.G’s origins are unknown, but each of them uses a unique fighting style. Laura is the first character to employ Brazilian jiu-jitsu tactics, while Rashid is an acrobatic character who also happens to be the first in the main series to hail from the Middle East.

Familiar Foes With New Twists

New characters can inject a feeling of freshness to a fighting game, but it wouldn’t feel like Street Fighter without the franchise mainstays. With Street Fighter V, several fan favorites are represented, including Ryu, Chun-Li, Ken, M. Bison (Dictator), and Cammy. These names are familiar to longtime players, but Capcom and Dimps worked to make the experience of controlling some of those fighters different from past games.

“We have characters coming back like Chun-Li, Ken, and even Cammy changed some, but we made sure to have at least one thing – I told the team I want one thing that they change on purpose for these characters,” Ono says. “I wanted them to go out of their way to make sure they did that.”

For example, Vega (Claw) is still an acrobatic, aerial assault-style character, but his inputs have been switched up to play more into his style. Dhalsim has also received some big changes including a revamp of his iconic Yoga Fire move, while Zangief has been given new throws to help him restrict his opponents even more than before.

Even with the notion of intentionally changing up legacy characters, Ono paid close attention to the process to ensure that the DNA of these characters remained intact in a way that was recognizable to the passionate fan base. “The way that the character attacks, the way that you play with them, the DNA of the character – I made sure to tell them to keep that 100-percent intact,” he says. “Even though the characters may have changed, they still have stuff that you’re used to. If you look at Ken, we made sure to keep his attacks and made sure that he has a playstyle where he’s constantly attacking and rushing down the opponent. Or with Chun-Li where she has a lot of kick moves, but also capable in air-to-air combat sort of situations. It’s how we’re resetting and how we’re having people approach it a little bit differently.”

Because of where the story falls in the series’ timeline, Street Fighter IV’s original roster relied heavily on the characters appearing in Street Fighter II. Appearing later on the timeline, Street Fighter V’s launch stable pulls from a more diverse pool. Several characters from Street Fighter II’s roster appear, but Street Fighter V’s roster also pulls in multiple fighters who made their debuts in the Alpha trilogy, as well as Birdie, who appeared in the original Street Fighter, but skipped the Street Fighter II series.

Crafting the Combatants

With 16 playable characters at launch, Street Fighter V features a good mix of classic characters and new challengers. Yoshinori Ono pushed the team to make intentional changes for each character on the roster. We asked Ono to explain how he and the team designed each of the launch characters of Street Fighter V.

Ryu “When it comes to his visual design, the gi, headband, and gloves are indispensable. Of course, we did try more drastic redesigns, but it starts to miss the point when you go so far that someone seeing it for the first time doesn’t even recognize the character as Ryu. So, while we did make little tweaks here and there like giving more weight and thickness to his gi and upgrading the graphics, we decided to stick with his existing design. Ryu’s evolution has been more internal.” “When it comes to his visual design, the gi, headband, and gloves are indispensable. Of course, we did try more drastic redesigns, but it starts to miss the point when you go so far that someone seeing it for the first time doesn’t even recognize the character as Ryu. So, while we did make little tweaks here and there like giving more weight and thickness to his gi and upgrading the graphics, we decided to stick with his existing design. Ryu’s evolution has been more internal.”

Chun-Li “She was the first character we created, alongside Ryu (of course we’ve been continually adjusting them both throughout the development process). Chun-Li is a character who’s changed quite a bit from one installment to the next, but I think we’ve always preserved the fact that she’s a speedy character who inflicts lots of hits. We kept that in mind for this installment when creating her moves and systems.” “She was the first character we created, alongside Ryu (of course we’ve been continually adjusting them both throughout the development process). Chun-Li is a character who’s changed quite a bit from one installment to the next, but I think we’ve always preserved the fact that she’s a speedy character who inflicts lots of hits. We kept that in mind for this installment when creating her moves and systems.”

Dhalsim “As with past titles, Dhalsim has been tricky to balance. He either ends up ridiculously strong, or ridiculously weak. After lots of trial and error, we made it so his Yoga Fire launches in a parabolic arc. For a horizontal approach, he’s got his fierce punch and roundhouse. His fighting style entails attacking while simultaneously distracting the opponent with Yoga Fires from above. From the opponent’s standpoint, Dhalsim moves at an easily observable speed, so you just have to stay calm and his tricks can be overcome. Aside from the big change mentioned above, we’ve made plenty of little tweaks and I think achieved just the right balance.” “As with past titles, Dhalsim has been tricky to balance. He either ends up ridiculously strong, or ridiculously weak. After lots of trial and error, we made it so his Yoga Fire launches in a parabolic arc. For a horizontal approach, he’s got his fierce punch and roundhouse. His fighting style entails attacking while simultaneously distracting the opponent with Yoga Fires from above. From the opponent’s standpoint, Dhalsim moves at an easily observable speed, so you just have to stay calm and his tricks can be overcome. Aside from the big change mentioned above, we’ve made plenty of little tweaks and I think achieved just the right balance.”

Nash “What we originally envisioned for Nash (in SFV) was a killer, hell-bent on revenge… a cold assassin with no memories other than those of his own death. His critical art, sonic move, and other moves were designed with the above concept in mind, and we never strayed from that.” “What we originally envisioned for Nash (in SFV) was a killer, hell-bent on revenge… a cold assassin with no memories other than those of his own death. His critical art, sonic move, and other moves were designed with the above concept in mind, and we never strayed from that.”

Rashid “With Rashid, we were going for a character who would provide contrast with Ryu. He is loose and lax in general, but buckles down when the time comes to get serious. He’s also a child of the modern age, and has a penchant for all the latest gadgets.” “With Rashid, we were going for a character who would provide contrast with Ryu. He is loose and lax in general, but buckles down when the time comes to get serious. He’s also a child of the modern age, and has a penchant for all the latest gadgets.”

Necalli “The original concept was a shocking character who craved battle with mighty opponents, and who would actually eat those he defeated. It eventually occurred to us that a flesh-eating character might not be suitable for a Teen-rated game, so we changed him into a devourer of souls. To give him an animal-like quality, we designed his hair to resemble snakes or octopus tentacles. It’s also reflected in his battle style, where he attacks with his claws and intimidates the opponent with roars. He’s an incredibly untamed character. We wanted to use the beautiful culture of South America as groundwork and sculpt it into some kind of a human form.” “The original concept was a shocking character who craved battle with mighty opponents, and who would actually eat those he defeated. It eventually occurred to us that a flesh-eating character might not be suitable for a Teen-rated game, so we changed him into a devourer of souls. To give him an animal-like quality, we designed his hair to resemble snakes or octopus tentacles. It’s also reflected in his battle style, where he attacks with his claws and intimidates the opponent with roars. He’s an incredibly untamed character. We wanted to use the beautiful culture of South America as groundwork and sculpt it into some kind of a human form.”

M. Bison (Dictator) “For SFV, we’ve updated his animations to preserve that ‘boss-like’ quality. You’ll notice he has a very imposing walk with his arms crossed. Application of his normal Psycho Crusher overlapped with that of the Double Knee Press – predominantly used for chip damage on wakeup, which wasn’t very ‘boss-like’ at all, so we got rid of it.” “For SFV, we’ve updated his animations to preserve that ‘boss-like’ quality. You’ll notice he has a very imposing walk with his arms crossed. Application of his normal Psycho Crusher overlapped with that of the Double Knee Press – predominantly used for chip damage on wakeup, which wasn’t very ‘boss-like’ at all, so we got rid of it.”

Vega (Claw) “The core concept for Vega was to do away with the tendency to just spam crouching medium punch at the mid to long range. We also envisioned him as an aerial combat specialist. We didn’t think charge commands were a great fit for aerial special moves, so we changed his inputs. We also wanted to create more disparity in his attack style depending on whether or not he has the claw equipped.” “The core concept for Vega was to do away with the tendency to just spam crouching medium punch at the mid to long range. We also envisioned him as an aerial combat specialist. We didn’t think charge commands were a great fit for aerial special moves, so we changed his inputs. We also wanted to create more disparity in his attack style depending on whether or not he has the claw equipped.”

Cammy “Cammy was originally envisioned to be an extreme in-fighter. Thanks to her thrusting attack after activating V-Trigger, we’ve made her into a character who can deal huge damage in a short amount of time. We’ve also changed her aerial mobility by way of the Cannon Strike and EX Cannon Strike so that she’s more capable of unleashing surprise attacks.” “Cammy was originally envisioned to be an extreme in-fighter. Thanks to her thrusting attack after activating V-Trigger, we’ve made her into a character who can deal huge damage in a short amount of time. We’ve also changed her aerial mobility by way of the Cannon Strike and EX Cannon Strike so that she’s more capable of unleashing surprise attacks.”

Karin “No matter what we do, Rekka moves always end up being powerful (dive-kicks, too). We’ve made them only available with the V-Trigger active, creating a sort of ebb and flow to her offense. We’d intended for Karin to be a technical character from the very beginning. She’s a popular character that garners a lot of interest, but she requires some practice to master.” “No matter what we do, Rekka moves always end up being powerful (dive-kicks, too). We’ve made them only available with the V-Trigger active, creating a sort of ebb and flow to her offense. We’d intended for Karin to be a technical character from the very beginning. She’s a popular character that garners a lot of interest, but she requires some practice to master.”

Birdie “From a design standpoint, his chain was always what stood out about him, so we felt we should increase the number of attacks that use it. We’ve added moves that prioritize moving the opponent over Birdie’s own mobility, making him come off as more of a reactive character. But in actuality, his V-Skill also makes him adept at offensive maneuvers.” “From a design standpoint, his chain was always what stood out about him, so we felt we should increase the number of attacks that use it. We’ve added moves that prioritize moving the opponent over Birdie’s own mobility, making him come off as more of a reactive character. But in actuality, his V-Skill also makes him adept at offensive maneuvers.”

Ken “We wanted to turn Ken into a character completely distinct from Ryu. His initial design had him in a modified gi. There are even design drafts out there depicting him in a suit, but he is a fighter, first and foremost, so we decided to stick with the gi but evolve it. Ken is a clever, skillful type, so he’s able to absorb new influences from a variety of sources, such as taking on new training. We equipped him with some new training wear and a fighting style that puts a unique twist on Gouken’s teachings.” “We wanted to turn Ken into a character completely distinct from Ryu. His initial design had him in a modified gi. There are even design drafts out there depicting him in a suit, but he is a fighter, first and foremost, so we decided to stick with the gi but evolve it. Ken is a clever, skillful type, so he’s able to absorb new influences from a variety of sources, such as taking on new training. We equipped him with some new training wear and a fighting style that puts a unique twist on Gouken’s teachings.”

F.A.N.G “We were going for a character with a deceptive, dirty fighting style. It was decided in the very beginning that he would possess reach second only to Dhalsim. We toyed with the idea of having him use some kind of concealed weapon, but we needed to keep him distinct from Vega, so we ended up going with the poison concept. F.A.N.G is also integral to the game’s story.” “We were going for a character with a deceptive, dirty fighting style. It was decided in the very beginning that he would possess reach second only to Dhalsim. We toyed with the idea of having him use some kind of concealed weapon, but we needed to keep him distinct from Vega, so we ended up going with the poison concept. F.A.N.G is also integral to the game’s story.”

R. Mika “We focused on trying to make her feel more like a pro wrestler. Street Fighter V has more characters categorized as grapplers than previous entries, but we aimed to give each one their own distinct style. For Mika, we created lots of different ways for her to set up throw opportunities.” “We focused on trying to make her feel more like a pro wrestler. Street Fighter V has more characters categorized as grapplers than previous entries, but we aimed to give each one their own distinct style. For Mika, we created lots of different ways for her to set up throw opportunities.”

Laura “We received a request from our South American team to craft a new Brazilian fighter. Around that time, we had also decided that one of the new characters would be a woman. For Laura, we’d wanted to create a fighting style consisting of a combination of linking moves and striking moves, so Brazilian jiu-jitsu made for a good fit, given the character’s nationality. She boasts good forward and backward mobility, and close observers will note that she employs suri-ashi (feet shuffling).” “We received a request from our South American team to craft a new Brazilian fighter. Around that time, we had also decided that one of the new characters would be a woman. For Laura, we’d wanted to create a fighting style consisting of a combination of linking moves and striking moves, so Brazilian jiu-jitsu made for a good fit, given the character’s nationality. She boasts good forward and backward mobility, and close observers will note that she employs suri-ashi (feet shuffling).”

Zangief “Our first thought was to get rid of Banishing Flat. The concept in SFV takes it back to the original Street Fighter II, where it was all about seeking powerful throw opportunities. In light of that, we’ve implemented some new ways for Zangief to get in close and endure opponents’ attacks. By implementing an aerial anti-air throw, we’ve made Zangief more able to restrict opponents’ movements (and make them very aware of that).” “Our first thought was to get rid of Banishing Flat. The concept in SFV takes it back to the original Street Fighter II, where it was all about seeking powerful throw opportunities. In light of that, we’ve implemented some new ways for Zangief to get in close and endure opponents’ attacks. By implementing an aerial anti-air throw, we’ve made Zangief more able to restrict opponents’ movements (and make them very aware of that).”

The Balancing Act

Once the characters are implemented into the roster, they must be balanced to play well. Having an overpowered character is problematic as online matches become flooded with that character and players who spam his or her most effective moves.

Part of this balancing act is having characters that are accessible through movesets that are easier to input, but those characters also have drawbacks in other areas. In that regard, the team must be careful as to not nuke a character’s abilities too much. If a character is too weak compared to the other fighters, that character won’t get used, or players will become so frustrated that they’ll stop playing the game altogether.

“No character has value as a combat tool if he or she is too strong or too weak. Except maybe Dan [laughs],” Ono says. “When balancing characters, we don’t think to ourselves, ‘This character is powerful in the story, so let’s balance him to be super powerful.’”

An example he gives is Sagat in vanilla Street Fighter IV. The massive “Emperor of Muay Thai” was perhaps the most powerful character in the game, but fans seemed to be more forgiving of that fact due to his standing as a formidable character in the story. Sagat was eventually balanced out to be fairer for competition.

When Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition launched in 2010, Yun was viewed as overpowered. Though he wasn’t as overpowered as Sagat in the original Street Fighter IV, the player feedback was louder than it was with Sagat. “I suspect the criticism of Yun was so much higher that on some subconscious level, people were thinking, ‘Sagat’s the Emperor of Muay Thai – of course he’s powerful. But Yun’s just some young punk,’” Ono says.

Shortly after these criticisms surfaced, the team released a balance update that addressed the issues. Going forward, Ono says that the team has kept these lessons in their minds while working on Street Fighter V. “We want to ensure that we don’t have another situation like we did with Sagat and Yun, so we’re working really hard to provide a very balanced game with SFV,” he says.

Listening to player feedback has proven crucial to the team, which is why Capcom and Dimps have been getting Street Fighter V in the hands of as many players as possible prior to launch through expos and beta tests. “We have always poised ourselves to listen to everyone’s feedback,” Ono says. “That stance has not changed with SFV, where we’ve been continuously conducting beta tests and collecting user feedback."

“Unfortunately, we can’t listen to each and every user’s opinion. One user might say we should make shoryukens stronger. Another will say we should make shoryukens weaker. It’s impossible to honor both of these requests at the same time. But, we always read player feedback, then make the appropriate decisions to the best of our ability.”