Street Fighter 6 is quickly approaching what could be considered the half-way point of its second season of content already, but there’s still presumably a lot more the developers have cooking up behind the scenes.
Capcom recently revealed their games lineup and a special broadcast planned for Tokyo Game Show 2024, which does include having SF6 and the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on the menu.
According to their official page for the event, Capcom is going to be focusing on a mixture of upcoming and already available titles for their coverage including SF6, Marvel, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, Monster Hunter Wilds, Monster Hunter Now, Ace Attorney Investigations Collection and Kunitsu-Gami.
They will be holding their TGS2024 Capcom Online Program on Thursday, September 26, at 7 a.m. PT / 10 a.m. ET.
The description isn’t very specific, however, as to what all that presentation is going to feature besides this description “Get all the latest Capcom news in our pre-recorded stream as part of TGS Online!”
Considering that the MvC Collection is launching digitally on September 12, there presumably won’t be much if anything to talk about for that game since it’ll already be in the wild, so what of SF6.
Terry Bogard will have already released a few days before TGS starts, so any new announcements would be for what comes next after Street Fighter’s first guest character in 37 years.
So let’s go over the possibilities of what Capcom could have cooking for the Tokyo Game Show this year along with how likely we believe they are to actually show up at the event (if anything at all).
Chance Level: Low
Considering the next DLC character will be out by then, the natural inclination may be to expect the following character would be teased in short order to keep the hype train going — in this case for Mai Shiranui.
We really don’t see that happening, however, with Terry coming out just a few days before TGS, and Capcom likely wouldn’t want to take away from his launch-week shine so quickly in favor of his Fatal Fury compatriot.
There’s also the fact that Mai isn’t planned to show up in SF6 until Winter 2025, so the soonest she’s going to release is January or February next year.
It’s still far too soon with how they’ve structured their marketing campagins for SF6 so far for Capcom to show off the kunoichi this soon.
Instead, we’ll probably have to wait until The Game Awards 2024 in December to get a trailer for Mai as another Geoff Keighley event like we saw with the Year 2 reveal at the Summer Games Fest and Terry’s gameplay trailer at Gamescom 2024.
Chance Level: Mid
One thing that’s continued to be sorely missing from Street Fighter 6’s content updates are actual character costumes that are not just for a player’s custom avatar.
It’s been over a year since the first round of Outfit 3 designs were first revealed and then dropped last December.
Rashid, A.K.I., Ed and Akuma receiving their third fits were the last additions in May, and we haven’t heard anything really since.
Compared to Street Fighter 5 and most other large scale online games of the current age, SF6 is lagging behind in terms of meaningful cosmetic options, which some may argue is a good thing.
Many players, however, are tired of using / seeing the same characters and costumes match after match and have been asking for more variety and choices to make their fighter a bit more personalized — and not just their avatar.
Capcom dropping SF6 costume reveals could fit into their TGS reveals to help drum up some more interest in the game although general outfits may be a bit too inside baseball for the general audience.
That is unless it’s coupled with some new Street Fighter crossovers like we’ve seen plenty of times with the game already with things like Spy x Family, Monster Hunter, Baki the Grappler, Pop Team Epic and now Fatal Fury.
The problem is most of that content has been tied to avatars and the Battle Hub, so getting actual character costumes out of it would be a nice change of pace.
We already had a ton of crossover costumes in Street Fighter 5, and they wouldn’t even need to pull from outside of Capcom to get a bunch of interesting choices.
Just do what Dead Rising is doing now with having Frank dress up like Ken, Tron Bonne, Chris Redfield and others except maybe make them look a bit less goofy.
Give us Phoenix Wright Ryu, Dr. Wily JP and Jon Talbain Blanka.
Chance Level: High
We’ve unfortunately seen in the past that just because Capcom includes a game in their special presentations doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily have anything truly new to show for them.
Given how close TGS is to Terry’s release, we may be looking at a similar situation for SF6 again, so we shouldn’t be surprised if much of their time is dedicated to going back over their latest DLC character.
Capcom has also used these broadcasts a few times to push their eSports ventures as well, so the Street Fighter League Pro-JP is probably at least going to be highlighted.
Since this is the Tokyo Game Show, the upcoming Japan Super Premier for the Capcom Pro Tour is also likely a subject of discussion as well as Capcom Cup 11 taking place in Tokyo next year.
Fans are probably best off setting their expectations pretty low for SF6 announcements at TGS this year, but we’re still holding out some hope that there could be something more.
Just don’t be surprised if all we get is another crossover and eSports promotion.