It’s the second Thursday of the month and so the latest Street Fighter 6 online character popularity statistics have been released. This is a particularly interesting snapshot as March was the first full month in which the latest DLC newcomer, Ed, was playable (he released on February 27).
Though reception for the Psycho Powered pugilist has been mixed when it comes to fighting game social media, the numbers suggest he’s an absolute hit of a new character, dwarfing those of both his DLC predecessors: A.K.I. and Rashid.
There are a ton of filters that Capcom has applied to help sort out this character usage data, and so we can see the full cast ordering overall as well as within restricted parameters according to ranked groups and control types.
Observing the overall stats with no filters applied, Ed not only comes in red-hot with a first place ranking (something neither previous DLC character got even close to doing) but does so with a whopping 3.6% margin over second placer, Ken.
Looking with a little more selected specificity, Ed is first most popular among Platinum and Diamond ranked players, and then third most popular in the Master ranks.
For contrast we can look at his predecessors. A.K.I.’s first full month was October where she debuted at 5th overall. She was third in both Platinum and Diamond, and 10th in Master. She fell to 13th overall in her second full month, and has hovered in the bottom six ever since.
Rashid’s first full month was August where he debuted in 13th overall. He was 14th in both Platinum and Diamond, and 15th in Master. He fell to 15th overall in his second month and has been in either 16th or 17th in every month since.
Whatever Capcom did with Ed, it seems to be working where the rubber meets the road. It’ll surely be interesting to see if the newcomer retains this kind of momentum in the coming months, or if his is a star that will burn brightly and quickly.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter (especially if you’ve been playing Ed) in the comments below. You can get a snapshot view of the top of a few of the popularity charts by clicking the images here:
Click images for larger versions