The entire fighting game community was shocked when, at a PAX East panel, Capcom revealed that Street Fighter 4 would be getting another (final?) balance/content update.

Many fans had believe Super SF4 AE 2012 was the last iteration of this particular Street Fighter incarnation – it had three suffixes, after all.

Yet Ono-san’s development team has secretly been hard at work rebalancing, reconfiguring, and reintensifying the world’s most recognizable fighting game franchise.

And while they’ve publicly reached out for suggestions on gameplay changes, we at Top Tier Tactics have uncovered the dirty truth: Capcom has already finalized its improvements to Ultra Street Fighter 4 !

How’d we get our mitts on these patch notes? Whom did we have to bribe? Why is there a dead body in our storage closet? None of those answers matter. Feast your eyes on the updates for the final version of Street Fighter 4!

Ultra Street Fighter 4 Version 2014 Changes

General Changes and Fixes

Reintroduced Championship Mode. This popular tournament-style mode from the original Street Fighter 4 has been reinstated by fan request!

Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause a player to repeatedly fail to connect to a ranked match

Fixed a bug that prevented some players from unlocking character colors

Added two new characters, Dark Akuma and Evil Seth. While characters like Elena and Alex were popular in Capcom Unity polls, their special move inputs are too counterintuitive for most Street Fighter players

Improved connection speed and latency for all international regions except the USA

Removed the Replay Channel

Character-Specific Changes

Abel: To encourage gameplay variety, Abel will now be hit and throw invulnerable during Breathless preparation, as well as during and after Breathless activation (this effect does not end after the move has been competed)

Adon: Adon’s entire moveset has been reworked to include fewer kick-based attacks. Jaguar Kick, while retaining its name, will now be a shorter-range move that uses punching attacks instead. Ultra Combo animations have not been effected, though their damage has been lowered (-20 and -40, respectively) to reflect this change

Akuma: To encourage mid-level players into adopting vortex setups, Akuma’s stamina has been upgraded to 1150. Now Akuma players can be even more risky with their mix-ups. Enjoy!

Balrog: This character has been renamed Claw to remove any confusion about his identity moving forward.

Blanka: Blanka’s cr.HP has become a stale element in high level matches, ruining the metagame for balanced competition. For this reason, Blanka has been removed from the game.

Cammy: To reward players who have stuck with Cammy in good times and bad, we have added armor to all of Cammy’s EX specials. However, this armor will only be available for players with an original Street Fighter 4 save file.

Chun Li: We upgraded the damage on the LK and MK versions of Spinning Bird Kick. Will you use them now? Please?

Cody: To reinforce Cody’s criminal heritage, players will begin the match equipped with Cody’s knife. Whenever a player drops the knife, his or her Super Meter will slowly drain. In addition, the “YOU” prompt over the knife is now 34% larger than before. We don’t know what else we can do to make you just pick up the goddamn knife.

C. Viper: Viper can now cancel any attack into any other attack, as long as the first frame of the cancelled attack has the same priority as the fourth frame of the secondary attack, assuming Viper is not super jumping or recovering from blockstun. Should be easy for newbies to pick up.

Dan: Added a new taunt, “Stolen Taunt,” that is input with F+HP+HK. When performed, Dan will act out a random personal action from the opponent’s character selection. If used to equip Guile’s sunglasses, Dan immediately wins the round.

Dark Akuma: Dark Akuma has been added to the game. Feasting off of evil energies that even normal Akuma could not understand, this evolution fights with the ガラス大砲 style. Dark Akuma has extremely spiky hair and exactly 666 stamina.

Dee Jay: No changes to Dee Jay have been made in Ultra Street Fighter 4. Honestly, we forgot he was in the game.

Dhalsim: Dhalsim’s Super Combo damage has been increased by +40, because we know how fun it is getting hit by that one.

Dudley: When using Dudley’s new Chivalry fighting stance, players will do an extra +10 damage against hooligan, rapscallian, and scalliwag characters. All attacks performed under Chivlary are +2 on block against Claw.

E. Honda: This character has been removed from the game pending litigation on ground of slander by the Governor’s Office of New Jersey

El Fuerte: Increased the execution window for El Fuerte’s infinite combo from one frame to two frames. Decreased throw damage by -10 to compensate.

Evil Ryu: New feature: if Ryu and Evil Ryu touch during a match, a Double K.O. will immediately occur for lore continuity reasons.

Evil Seth: Evil Seth has been added to the game. His moveset is the same as regular Seth’s, but Evil Seth has 1200 Stamina. In addition, players who choose Evil Seth will see their opponent’s input stream in real time during the match.

Fei Long: No changes have been made to Fei Long. We definitely got it right last time.

Gen: Added a third stance, Lotus Stance, which is activated by simultaneously inputting PPP+KKK+START+SELECT/BACK.

Gouken: In addition to choosing a direction for his fireballs, Gouken can now control fireball trajectory by holding UP or DOWN on the d-pad to telepathically guide projectiles into dodging opponents.

Guile: For lore reasons, Guile has been confined to a wheelchair (more on this in Street Fighter 5!). All kick attacks are no longer available; however, Guile is now immune to low attacks. It’s a shame that wasn’t the case during one particular routine drive through Afghanistan’s southern region last month.

Guy: Guy has been renamed Tetsumiyoto, which is a significantly more reasonable name for a ninja master than “Guy.”

Hakan: At the request of the Turkish Bureau of Tourism, Hakan’s skin and hair tones have been reverted to more normal color palettes. Capcom would greatly like to apologize to the great country of Turkey, home to millions of beautiful, normal-skinned people.

Ibuki: To encourage the popular “vortex” style of gameplay, Ibuki has been given an additional unblockable setup on grounded opponents. It is referred to as Tsushinboroishi-kayatetsukintosoowo.

Juri: is still out on this one.

Ken: For the first time in Street Fighter history, Ken Masters has a different body model than that of Ryu. To compensate, Ken’s damage has been lowered across the board by 12%

M. Bison: This character has been renamed Governor to remove any confusion about his identity moving forward.

Makoto: While internal testing showed that Makoto would be competitively viable with 1000 stamina, the Capcom development team unanimously decided that female characters can never have more then 950 stamina. Instead, we have given Makoto three exciting new costumes for 2013!

Oni: To address the wishes of our many fans, Oni can now levitate just like Magneto in MvC. Are you happy now? Is that what you want?

Rose: Soul Satellite’s startup frames have been decreased from 5 to 6. We had to give Luffy something to work with here.

Rufus: Since we don’t intend to carry over Rufus into Street Fighter 5, we’re just gonna kill him off with a cutscene heart attack and call it a day.

Ryu: Ryu can now combo into his Shinku Hadoken Ultra Combo from cr.MK

Sagat: Increased Super Meter gain on all combos that somehow combine both Angry Scar, cl.MP, and Fake Kick

Sakura: You still can’t jump in on her. Don’t even try.

Seth: To make room for differentiation with Evil Seth, Seth has been rerecorded by Cammy’s Japanese voice actor.

T. Hawk: All T. Hawk throws have been increased to 800 damage, since they pretty much killed you whenever they happened already.

Yang & Yun: Remember when people used to play these guys? Man, those were the days.

Vega: This character has been renamed Claw Gamma to remove any confusion about his identity moving forward.

Zangief: To complete the agreement we made with Disney’s animation studios, Zangief will be replaced by Wreck-It Ralph in Ultra Street Fighter 4. While Ralph’s moveset is similar to that of Zangief, he is wholly unable to defend Russia’s oh-so-vulnerable skies.