It was just last week that Street Fighter’s Ken and Chun-Li were revealed as DLC guest characters for the upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves in something of a tit for tat exchange for Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui popping up in Street Fighter 6.
These scheduled guest appearances are yet another instance of a red-hot trend in the fighting game industry in which major characters have been hopping across properties, but some have been quick to point out this usually happens with a franchise’s most popular character. Ryu, however, has been left out of the mix, and SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda tells why in a recent interview with Famitsu.
While Akuma did pull it off as a solo act in Tekken 7, Street Fighter guest appearances rarely happen without Ryu. From a cross-pollination marketing standpoint, that makes sense as you want your most recognizable face to serve as brand ambassador.
When there’s room for more than one character, however, and neither are Ryu, that’s rarer still. There’s a reason behind the call that long time Fatal Fury fans may have already supposed.
“When you think of Street Fighter, you think of Ryu and Ken,” started Oda when asked about the omission of Ryu, “but they have a lot of similar moves so players would probably think ‘I’d like a bit more variation here’. So then from that, the next step is to decide between Ryu and Ken and actually, Ken and Terry had a lot of interactions back in Capcom vs. SNK,” he said.
”Also, if you’re going to add someone like Ryu, from SNK I think that it’d make more sense to pair him with Ryo Sakazaki or Kyo Kusanagi, for Fatal Fury it’s Ken. Then for the second one, we thought that it’d be best to add Chun-Li who’s basically one of the icons of women in gaming,” continued the producer.
Indeed in many ways, despite their respective status as posterboys for their brands, Terry and Ryu don’t share as much overlap. Terry and Ken are both fiery, blonde hair and blue eyed fighters with a tendency for advancing offense, and that might be a major factor in the decision as well.
”Throughout all the games in the Street Fighter series, both Ken and Chun-Li have changed a lot,” said Oda when asked about Street Fighter guest gameplay abilities in City of the Wolves. “Ken in particular has varied a lot so first of all we wanted to emphasize the image everyone has of Ken and also being very aware of adapting their abilities to the ‘Fatal Fury’ system.”
While Ken was a carbon copy of Ryu to begin with, he has certainly evolved over the years to err more on the side of rush down than Ryu.
By no means the only example, Ken’s V-Skill and V-Trigger abilities in Street Fighter 5 highlight his evolution quite nicely. Where Ryu’s unique comeback mechanics enhance his abilities to sit in place like a solid tank and play more “fireballs and uppercuts,” Ken’s V-System causes him to dash forward, sometimes while on fire.
Fatal Fury gameplay has always had a bit of a tinge toward the offensive relative to its Capcom counterpart, and so while Ryu surely could find his way without much issue, the high octane atmosphere more naturally lends itself to Ken.
A special thank you to Nick “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor for the Japanese to English translation.
City of the Wolves is currently scheduled to be released on April 24, 2025 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC via Steam, and Xbox Series X/S.