On September 28, Capcom announced the sequel to Street Fighter IV to resounding applause from fans of the franchise as well as a collective, “Excuse Me?” from just about everyone else.
to resounding applause from fans of the franchise as well as a collective, “Excuse Me?” from just about everyone else. In keeping with Capcom’s traditional “adjective add-on” over further “numerical denomination” naming system, the new title will be dubbed Super Street Fighter IV . The game will arrive with an entirely new SKU, not a patch or DLC, and will feature eight new characters, Ultra Combos and balancing tweaks, much to the chagrin of everyone who has been using Sagat to eviscerate competitors online.
The game is being billed by Capcom, via press release, as the “Ultimate Vision of Street Fighter,” and while it does contain a number of worthy features, who hasn’t missed T-Hawk, the thought on a lot of gamers’ minds is: “Didn’t Street Fighter IV just come out?”
A valid question, depending on where you live: Japanese Street Fighter fans have been enjoying the game since it was released in June of 2008 in arcade box form. Plus, fans of the franchise know Capcom is no stranger to the game-remix format. The most extreme example being Street Fighter II — which enjoyed several sequels: Street Fighter II: Champion Edition , Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting , Super Street Fighter II , and Super Street Fighter II Turbo .
The announcement shouldn’t surprise gamers as recent history shows that Capcom is unafraid of cashing in on flagship titles, releasing Street Fighter IV DLC costume packs for hefty prices at launch as well as shipping Resident Evil 5 sans versus mode then charging for it weeks later as DLC. Though, for some, these prices might be worth the cost of admission (despite the bad precedent it is setting), and there’s certainly plenty of time left for gamers to thoroughly vet whether or not they’ll pick up a copy of the sequel. Certainly, unverified rumors of a budget price as well as unannounced features will certainly play a major factor.
Super Street Fighter IV is scheduled for a Spring 2010 launch.