Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition is getting new characters, stages, and more
Capcom has announced that new content is coming to Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition. This morning, the company released a developer update for May 2020 that details what fans can look forward to for the game.
New characters, stages, costumes, and more are set to be added to the game.
In the Capcom Unity blog, it was announced that Street Fighter 5 will be seeing a final season. This Season "V" will add five new characters and three new stages.
"Due to the positive reception to Season 4 and Champion Edition, we are planning to do a final Season 'V', which will add 'V' more fighters to the roster," the blog states. "Three new stages are also being planned."
Capcom announced that they will be hosting a costume contest that will allow fans to submit their own designs for any of the 40 characters currently on the roster. Starting now through July 21, you can send your designs in.
Two winners will be selected and their creations will become reality in-game.
For guidelines on how to enter the costume design contest, you check out this page here. Submissions will be looked over and various entries will be selected by the Capcom staff.
The community will then be able to vote for their favorite designs on Twitter and two winning designs will be chosen. Voting will run from August 17, 2020, at 10:00 a.m. PDT until August 31, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
Capcom will be announcing the winners in early September, and the two artists who are chosen will receive a special in-game title.
The blog post also shared more costume concept art from the development team. We see different designs for G, Poison, E. Honda, Sakura, Ed, and Cody.
Click images for larger versions
Lastly, as previously stated, color EX 09 is now available for free to all Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition users. Previously, this special palette for all 40 characters was a pre-order bonus for CE.
Beginning with a 16-character roster at launch back in February 2016, Street Fighter 5 has gone through several iteration updates and four full seasons of content. Now, with Champion Edition and the upcoming Season 5, the roster will be up to a whopping 45 playable characters.
Each season, Capcom has added six new DLC characters to the fight. Though Season 4 changed up the release schedule quite a bit, ultimately, we ended up with another six characters ending in Seth's release alongside Champion Edition.
We won't be learning more about Street Fighter 5's upcoming final season until later this Summer. With the adjustments made to major events here in 2020 due to the coronavirus, it's harder to say when and where we might be seeing the next big information drop.
Starting on July 4, EVO Online will be hosting five weeks of fighting game action. Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition will be featured at the event, though it will not be an open tournament for all to join. We could be seeing a new reveal during this time, however, as this would be a good opportunity as fans watch from home.
With the cancellation of E3, many game developers are taking part in the Summer Game Fest as a means to discuss and reveal their upcoming games and content. These weekly streams might be another way for Capcom to start showcasing what all is planned for the future of Street Fighter 5.
In terms of who the five additional fighters could be, that is anybody's guess. Back in 2017, Capcom ran a character popularity poll that may provide insight into who could be joining the cast.
Several of the top 16 characters are already in Street Fighter 5, but there are a couple listed here that have a chance at making an appearance this time around.
Snatching up the #2 spot is Street Fighter 3's own Makoto. She sits among a top 10 that are all currently in Street Fighter 5 — with the exception of Q who is very closely related to G.
Further down the list we have Dudley at 14th and Skullomania at 16th. The former seems more likely than the latter, and though these fighters aren't a lock for Season 5, it is interesting to see how many characters from this popularity poll (or at least some version of them) are already in the game.
A new season of Street Fighter 5 also could mean a new set of balance changes, as that is traditionally what we've seen with updates. With this being the final season of the game, we might be seeing Capcom put a major focus on tying up any loose ends that the game still has untied.
In an interview with US Gamer back in March, Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono explained the difficulties of developing an online fighting game. He noted that the netcode is closely tied to the game design itself, and stated that the development team understands the importance of keeping the game balance and netcode sharp.
"The fact that the netcode is so closely tied to the overall game design and that each user has different network environments, is the difficult part about developing an online title," Ono said. "Adjusting the game design (fighting system) and the netcode is something we need to look into continuously and we understand and embrace that challenge."
If we do in fact see more balance changes with Season 5, this could also mean more updates to the netcode to further improve the online experience.
Until we get more information on Season 5, fans can enjoy the free color EX 09 and latest changes to Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition.
