Nine characters in Street Fighter 5's story modes who could become the game's final DLC addition

Spoilers: They're all Peter

Posted by John Velociraptor Guerrero • September 17, 2020 at 7:27 p.m. PDT • Comments: 91

During their Season 5 DLC presentation for Street Fighter 5, Capcom developers were sure to point out that some of their new character choices were directly tied to the game's story.

As such, we figured going back through A Shadow Falls as well as the individual character pre-stories to spot other figures who might fit that same bill might help us speculate as to the potential identity of the fifth and final character who is slated to be added toward the end of next year.

We've rounded up nine possible characters who have made story mode appearances but have yet to be part of the playable roster. These aren't arranged in any particular order, and have varying degrees of potential based on things like fan popularity and charisma, as well as significance to SF5's plot.

Abel pops up in both A Shadow Falls and in the pre stories. He serves as little more than a plot device that gives the heroes a little trouble and Zangief something somewhat meaningful to do, but he is one of the most prominently featured NPCs across the board.

The Street Fighter 4 grappler was surely polarizing during his time in the spotlight as he was reasonably exciting to watch and reasonably frustrating to face off with for some characters. Given the current climate and situation with Street Fighter 5, I'd say Abel has a decent shot of being the fifth and final Season 5 fighter.

It's been years since we've had a new grappling type character added to SF5 (Abigail joined in Season 2) and I don't think the addition of one more would be off putting to too many fans, and would certainly be of intrigue to a significant bunch.

Azam has been around since day one of Street Fighter 5 as Rashid's right hand man in both of the game's story avenues. He's around for almost all of the screen time Rashid is, and has a stature and status that could very easily translate to a formidable fighter.

Azam briefly discusses wrestling with Zangief at one point in a character story scene, so perhaps he'd have a bit of grappling built into his style? The main reaction I have here is to consider how prominent Azam has been and how apathetic most fans have been about him.

I'd argue that he could bring something of a Gouken like presence to the roster, but Rashid is actually his master. There's also quite a difference between being a mentor figure for the heavily-established Ryu and Ken vs. that of a brand new and highly annoying top tier character, so I'm having a hard time finding the intrigue.

Azam makes some sense here, but would likely be received with mostly negative or apathetic responses. He surely isn't of the ilk you'd want in a character to close out an entire game's DLC.

Sean is definitely a contender here as he's been refreshed in fans' minds thanks to the introduction of his sister, Laura. He wound up being Third Strike's joke character (despite being particularly strong in previous versions of Street Fighter 3) and we now have Dan en route as the first DLC fighter of Season 5, but what if Capcom brings Sean back as a legit character?

He has a good bit of charisma and while he wouldn't make as big of a natural splash as someone like Fei-Long or C. Viper, Sean would check a handful of boxes when it comes to intrigue. I don't think people would be mad if Sean were revealed as the final newcomer, but we may see a good bit of apathy.

As always, a lot would ride on how developers went about creating the latest look for the basketball playing fighter, but I do think there's a timeline where Sean is chosen and winds up being a success... it's just not the most likely one.

Decapre is prominent in the story thanks to her strong connections to Cammy, but Capcom may be especially hesitant to include her based on her so-so reception as Street Fighter 4's final addition.

Decapre would be a relatively interesting character that developers could do a good bit with, but might inspire a sigh from the larger community simply because of the baggage she's currently carrying.

I'm not exactly sure how she'd play, but my instincts immediately compare her to both Cammy and Kolin... two characters I'm not especially excited to see more of in Street Fighter 5. Decapre would be acceptable, but probably not celebrated.

Gouken is actually one of the very first characters you wind up seeing when you first boot up Street Fighter 5 as he helps out in the game's tutorial. He can be seen teaching Ryu and Ken in various stories and, though I might be a bit biased, was a pretty great addition to Street Fighter 4.

It doesn't seem as though Capcom has had it in the cards to put the old man in SF5, but perhaps his status as a respected teacher and something of an antithesis to Akuma would make him worthy enough to be a DLC bookend. I'm not holding my breath for this one, but it would be pretty cool.

A handful of Bison's dolls show up in SF5's story modes and you actually get to fight against a few of them. We see they're mostly replications of Cammy's design, but they do retain some of their own special attacks.

These ladies have been on the DLC table forever, and some have been previously playable in the Alpha series. Capcom could take on some interesting approaches with making multiple dolls into one character, perhaps changing who is involved in the fight via V-Skill or Trigger choices.

Any combo of doll DLC would surely get some hype reactions from audiences, but many also seem to be happy to have these characters remain in the background.

A doll character would come down more to design and execution rather than matter of fact hype based on identity, but it could work.

Hugo actually does make an extremely brief appearance at the very end of Poison's story. There isn't a ton to say here except that he'd be something of a big surprise that I do think would come with a significant amount of charisma.

As I stated earlier the game could use another grappler type, and though not everyone would be attracted to playing a character like Hugo, he does have a certain charm about him that might make him an acceptable pick for more than those who would be excited to play him.

The end of Poison's story really does seem to be a bit of cliffhanger nod and implies a bit more with the character. It's likely Capcom wasn't planning on a fifth season of DLC when they made Poison's story, but perhaps they'll see this as an opportunity to roll with the set up they gave themselves.

Necro and his girlfriend, Effie, show up in the background of the Spooky Halloween stage that dropped during SF5's first year and is one of the characters Rashid texts with during his story.

These appearances certainly turned some heads when they first popped up, but chatter about Necro's inclusion has been almost non-existent once his cameos became old news.

We've certainly seen Capcom place playable characters into the backgrounds of stages, and Necro is a legacy fighter from Street Fighter 3, but he doesn't seem to have a ton of fans, relatively speaking. One has to wonder how much of a "wow" factor his reveal would bring, and I think this hurts his chances.

I'll just come right out and say it, of all the NPCs who appear in Street Fighter 5's single player modes, C. Viper is probably the best pick for the game's final DLC figure.

She was introduced in Street Fighter 4 and hit the ground with a charismatic running start, and although her abilities could be somewhat difficult to fight against, her technicality worked well to balance her power. Viper has plenty of fans thanks to her flashy style and sexy spy themes, and would likely be revealed to thunderous applause.

While there are some non-SF5 characters that rival C. Viper in terms of popularity, she's got to be the front runner as far as NPCs go. It seems Capcom simply put her into story modes for fan service at this point, (she narrates almost all of Nash's pre story) but fleshing her out into a full roster member is one of the safest moves they could resort to at this point.

There are a handful of other figures that make smaller cameo appearances or who simply aren't highlighted in as much of a "potential DLC" light as others. There surely is a chance for these, but they still find themselves in the "honorable mention" category: Byron Taylor, Shibasaki, Mike Haggar, Edi. E, the Andore family members, Roxy, and Li-Fen.

To be clear, there's nothing that says the game's 45th character will definitely be one of the many NPCs found in single player modes, but many of these fighters have been piquing interests for quite some time and are worth a refresher.

Now it's your turn. Who, of SF5's story mode non player characters, do you think has the best shot at being the game's final DLC character and why? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments while we wait around for Winter of 2021 to get here.