During a live stream interview at the GameStop Expo 2015 on Twitch, Matt Dahlgren talked a little bit about the upcoming Street Fighter V. Capcom’s Senior Product Marketing Manager first revealed how characters are selected for the roster, admitting that the internal discussions on the subject are the most intense. As it turns out, Capcom uses a variety of sources, including a past fan poll that ranked the fighters in terms of popularity.
Street Fighter V will launch with 16 core characters, half of which will be iconic individuals (such as Cammy, Chun Li, Ken, M. Bison, Ryu and Vega). Four of the other fighters are based on past characters who haven’t show up in recent games (like Birdie, R. Mika and Nash) while the remaining four slots are going to be filled with newcomers such as Necalli.
Matt Dahlgren promises that the fifth mainline installment of the series will have its own “unique flavor” when compared to Street Fighter IV. He also reassured fans that more characters will be arriving via DLC. So their favorite fighter could end up in Street Fighter V eventually.
The Senior Product Marketing Manager also talked about the game’s unique DLC strategy. He revealed that Capcom looked at the competition in terms of how successful it was to implement a way to earn downloadable content without forcing the customer to pay. He also admitted that his company received backlash in regards to how Street Fighter IV was handled and is currently trying to rebuild its image for the fan base.
Street Fighter V is coming out next spring on the PS4 and PC. You can preorder the recently-announced collector’s edition with this link.