As the latest entry in the Street Fighter franchise before our current one, Street Fighter 5 should still be fairly fresh in people’s memories. After a tumultuous launch, the game saw long post-launch support, eventually growing a roster of 16 characters all the way to 45 — and a lot of them were brand new to the franchise, too.
A few of them are already in Street Fighter 6, although none made the launch roster, but which other ones are likely to join Street Fighter 6 during its post-launch support era, which will likely be going on for many years to come? Well, it’s time to have a look at the potential candidates.
First of all, let me point out that Abigail and Lucia won’t be mentioned within this article. This is because I already previously did a piece on Final Fight characters and their potential to join Street Fighter 6, so if you want to read about those two specifically you can check out that piece.
As for which characters from the Street Fighter 5 era who have already made it in to Street Fighter 6, season 1 saw the addition of both Rashid and Ed, two of Street Fighter 5’s newcomers, to the fray.
It’s also worth noting that Luke did join the Street Fighter franchise as the final fighter in Street Fighter 5, but seeing as he was included specifically as a sneak peek on what was in store for Street Fighter 6, with him already being created as the main character of the upcoming next installment, it’s somewhat debatable if he’s a Street Fighter 5 character or not.
Be that as it may, he’s in both games, so that’s that.
Now let’s have a look at which other characters might share that status with him and which are much less likely at doing so.
Necalli came off as an intimidating character with a cool design and when he was originally revealed, people were fairly excited about him. He was the first brand new character for Street Fighter 5 and seemed to have some kind of implications for the Satsui no Hado.
Then… well, the game released, people experienced the story mode and honestly, even Capcom dropped him like a bad habit, to the point where this character who seemed to have been poised to be the new antagonist of Street Fighter 5 was just… a sheep? No, really, in the story mode there’s a tripped out dream sequence where he transforms between himself and a sheep.
It’s hard to tell what exactly went wrong with Necalli, but whatever it was, Capcom did not handle it well and bizarrely claimed that G, a character who never even showed up in the story at all, was the “boss character” of Street Fighter 5.
I can’t imagine ever seeing Necalli again, to be frank, and accordingly to the blunder he ended up being, he has no references to him in Street Fighter 6 that I could find. He also placed near the bottom in both the 2018 and 2024 character polls. Yeah… sorry Necalli fans, I think he’s gone for good.
Although definitely more present than Necalli, there are a few other characters from Street Fighter 5 who seem unlikely not necessarily because they were complete misfires, but because Street Fighter 6 seems to have already essentially replaced them or finds them redundant.
The most obvious one of these is of course F.A.N.G, who has been succeeded by his protégé A.K.I. They don’t play the same, but they have the same gimmick of poison surrounding them and F.A.N.G. actually shows up a very good deal in Street Fighter 6’s World Tour where he sends you to talk to A.K.I. a few times.
Especially given the massive popularity A.K.I. has proven to have, I believe F.A.N.G. will be present in Street Fighter moving forward but as a narrative character more than an actual playable slot, with A.K.I. basically doing the dirty work for him.
Another character in a somewhat similar but not entirely identical spot is Zeku, Guy’s master in Bushinryu who many believe took his student’s place in Street Fighter 5.
In Street Fighter 6, we have an entirely new Bushinryu practitioner in Kimberly who is Guy’s student and while I don’t think that means we can’t have another ninja (or even another Bushinryu ninja specifically) in the roster, I think Zeku’s chances are fairly low.
If they wanted to use a Bushinryu ninja who wasn’t Guy, they already had Zeku right there. If they preferred a woman, Maki was available. But they went out of their way to make Kimberly from scratch instead, so I’d wager Zeku was already proposed and met with a “pass” from Capcom’s development team.
Zeku is actually referenced in Street Fighter 6, though, but only by a poster on Kimberly’s wall in her arcade ending illustration.
Finally, one more character I’d like to place in this category is Kage. Basically the embodiment of Evil Ryu after Ryu expelled the Satsui no Hado from his consciousness, he felt mostly like an excuse to have Evil Ryu without forcing Ryu to stay static in his story.
Kage’s popularity is actually decent, although not super high, placing around the middle but still in the upper half in the 2024 poll, but I feel like he’s a very “been there, done that” character and just doesn’t really serve any narrative purpose, which is something Capcom seem to be striving more for with Street Fighter 6.
He does make an appearance in one of Akuma’s story images in Street Fighter 6 as he’s another representative of the Satsui no Hado, but I honestly believe that’s all he’ll stay as.
Now, for the characters who I think actually have an okay chance of showing up.
One character who has absolutely no relation to the story but I think might still have a shot is Laura Matsuda, based largely on her just having interpersonal relationships with other characters.
Since she’s the older sister of Sean, Ken’s disciple, she has an automatic connection to him at the very least, so I could see her showing up eventually… though I wouldn’t expect her if Sean doesn’t come first, to be honest.
Laura is referenced slightly in the game with a cameo at one of Dee Jay’s concerts in the crowd alongside Guile and his daughter and is also mentioned by Blanka, presumably since they’re both from Brazil and both use electricity.
Menat is another character who I could see appearing, but much like with Laura, I feel like she’s one you’d have to expect based on the other picks. Menat preceded her master Rose in Street Fighter 5, but I don’t think that’ll happen twice.
Basically, if Rose shows up and has proper relevance for Capcom to want to include her in the narrative, I’m sure Menat will follow. If they’re not going to look at Rose particularly, I doubt we’ll see Menat. For her part, Menat doesn’t seem to be anywhere in Street Fighter 6 at the moment.
G, who as mentioned earlier was supposedly the final boss of Street Fighter 5, goes basically entirely unmentioned in Street Fighter 6’s narrative so far. His only appearance is as a background poster where he poses like Uncle Sam.
The main thing going for G besides his general popularity is the implied importance that Capcom have just never been able to actually show. Even Street Fighter 6’s director Takayuki Nakayama has said that G’s story is deep and he wishes to tell it one day.
Will that day be in Street Fighter 6? Well… let’s hope so.
Speaking of story relevance, there’s also been almost no mention of the Illuminati so far, despite the game taking place after Street Fighter 3. With the Gill subplot still unresolved, if we actually do revisit it during Street Fighter 6’s time, then his right-hand-woman Kolin will probably be showing up as well.
She is referenced by Juri as well as present in illustrations in the game, so it’s not like Capcom are ignoring her existence entirely, but she really has no relationships or story content outside of her organization.
Kolin’s general popularity isn’t very high, placing in the lower half in both polls, so in her case it’s almost entirely a case of story relevance, I think. If Capcom wants to follow up on Street Fighter 3’s narrative, she’ll be there. If not, I doubt it.
Finally, the most likely one out of this bunch should be Falke. Basically a sister figure to Ed, she is a member of Neo Shadaloo and Ed references her heavily, saying that he’s worried about her, in Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode.
She also appears for Ed’s birthday celebration presenting him with a birthday cake, so their close bond from Street Fighter 5 seems to be entirely intact.
Given that Ed himself has already been included in the game, and quite early at that, Falke stands a decent chance of showing up too. The main obstacle she’s facing is that Neo Shadaloo has shown some other members as well and Capcom could potentially decide to include someone else from the group who hasn’t been playable yet over her.
Her popularity is middling at best based on the 2024 poll, so she’s most likely a nepotism inclusion via Ed if anything. But that’s more than enough given his current significance.
It may surprise you (it did me), but Akira is actually insane popular. Like, I knew she was popular, but she’s absurdly popular.
One of the standout characters from Street Fighter’s sister franchise Rival Schools, Akira was eventually added to Street Fighter 5 due to her general popularity as a character and the fact that her home series hadn’t seen a new installment in a long time.
As one of the last characters, she didn’t get to shine for too long before Street Fighter 5 was phased out in favor of the new release Street Fighter 6, but her inclusion was most definitely well-received.
So well-received was it, in fact, that in the recent 2024 poll held in-game via Street Fighter 6’s battle hub, she landed in 4th place, losing only to A.K.I., Sakura and Akuma and actually beating out the series main character Ryu who ended in 5th.
Akira’s plot relevance is fairly thin since she’s very new to the Street Fighter family itself and that Rival Schools, her origin series, deals with entirely different issues than Street Fighter does (Street Fighter being about world warriors while Rival Schools is literally just centered on one particular school), but her popularity more than makes up for that.
The fact that she’s from Rival Schools also carries extra potential for Capcom since it gives them direct cross-promotion value if they’re looking to revive the Rival Schools franchise and since Capcom have been asking fans which franchises they want to see back that’s definitely something that they’re very much thinking about.
So far, Akira has nothing referencing her in Street Fighter 6, but in her case that might be in her favor rather than to her detriment, because her absence actually comes off as conspicuous if anything.
Her popularity coupled with Capcom looking at franchises to revive (and Rival Schools placed quite well in that poll, especially domestically, when asked what games they’d like to see remakes of) as well as the general novelty of her gameplay since she’s from a different series all merge together into the perfect storm and make me think we’ll see her before Street Fighter 6 ends its support.
There’s also the clear possibility of including other Rival Schools characters since Akira did so well, but when she’s already resonated so well with fans… why not do both? It’s not like we tend to be limited to just one Final Fight character either, right?
And there we have it — I’d wager we’ll see a few more Street Fighter 5 cast members show up throughout Street Fighter 6’s lifespan, but the only one from this list that I’d be willing to bet any bison bucks on would be Akira.
What about you? Who are you hoping to see come back from Street Fighter 5? Let us know in the comments.
