This character first appeared in Street Fighter 3, but was considered too difficult to be playable later on

Effie, who’s best known as Necro’s girlfriend, was first introduced in Street Fighter 3 back in 1997. She was planned very early on, as the developers of the game wanted to deepen the playable character’s backstories from the very beginning.

“Contrary to the Street Fighter 2 days, it was difficult to tell a story with just the characters alone, so we wanted secondary cast members to develop the main cast more deeply,” said Capcom’s Tomoshi Sadamoto, who served as the producer of Street Fighter 3.

Effie, as it turns out, was captured by Gill and Urien’s organization, The Illuminati, and experimented upon just like Necro was. She also seems to have been given special abilities meant to put her in the front lines of battle.

Street Fighter 6’s Director, Takayuki Nakayama, was asked about both Necro and Effie in Street Fighter 6’s timeline.

“They must have succeeded in escaping from The Illuminati,” wrote Nakayama. “Effie was considered playable during Street Fighter 5, but was rejected. She was a very difficult character,” he noted.

Both Effie and Necro were seen in Street Fighter 5’s Halloween stage, and considering her abilities, the fact she may sport a chainsaw based on the CFN artwork, you can imagine there are quite a few possibilities when it comes to how Effie could play, if the developers are able to figure out how to do so.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that it was difficult to make a character playable though, as matching fan expectations and abilities, while making a playable cast member don’t always match up.

While it seems unlikely that Effie will be made playable in the future, the developers of Street Fighter 3 did cite this as one of their intentions with the side cast, using Nash as an example.

“Nash was like that too, you know? He was part of the backstory, but was then made playable. That’s the way we created supporting cast, with that in mind. If they ended up popular, they could be added to the game later,” said Sadamoto.

After all, it wasn’t that long ago that we learned that Nash is still alive, and could make an appearance in Street Fighter 6 in the future.

While it seems like it may take a long time to make Effie playable, it’s fairly common for the developers of these games to have a vision they cannot initially make happen — only to circle back in the future to a prior concept to make it a reality.