Street Fighter 6 is now three years old and still going strong, with more than 2,000 entrants at this year's Evo in Vegas, a fresh batch of new faces on the horizon in the upcoming fourth character pass (including the much anticipated figthing game debut of Tifa from Final Fantasy 7), and a lively online competitive scene.
To talk about the current state of the game, along with its plans for the future, IGN sat down with Director Takayuki Nakayama and Producer Shuhei Matsumoto at Evo 2026, where we covered topics ranging from the significance of Yasmine's inclusion as the first Filipino character in Street Fighter history, the future of single player content now that regular World Tour updates have ceased, and a little tease of what players can expect out of Arjun, Tifa, and Bosch's playstyles.
IGN: So, to start, you all previously confirmed that there will be no future World Tour updates, at least at this point, but also indicated that Street Fighter 6 is aiming for a 10-year lifespan. Can you talk a little bit about what kind of things that you're planning on adding to the game to keep that life cycle going, apart from just new characters?
Shuhei Matsumoto, Street Fighter 6 Producer: To take a step back real quick, one thing that we do want to make clear in this interview is that there may have been a small misunderstanding in terms of the future plans of Street Fighter 6. Rather than there being a 10-year life plan, like a 10-year roadmap, from our perspective, we try to tackle Street Fighter 6 as a game that could last up to 10 years. And there's no sort of confirmation that this is going to be a 10-year project. Rather, we went into the development with the mindset that we would love to have Street Fighter 6 operating and expanding for 10 years. So, I just want to make sure that's clear.
We went into the development with the mindset that we would love to have Street Fighter 6 operating and expanding for 10 years.Takayuki Nakayama, Street Fighter 6 Director: And in terms of what we want to do moving forward from here, there's a lot. Specific details that we can share at this moment is going to be quite difficult in terms of World Tour. This is something that we wanted to continue expanding upon. But besides from that, there are other things that we are currently looking into, and hopefully we'll have more to share at a later date.
So, it's safe to say that the future of single player content is still bright?
Nakayama: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things that we want to do. Certain things are out of their control. Just because we want to do something doesn't necessarily mean they can be realized. But we hope that we can deliver – and there's a lot new players – So we hope that we can accommodate to those people's needs.
With development resources presumably being freed up from not having to do World Tour content for every character that comes out, do you envision there being any change in either the frequency or the offerings of DLC in the future of Street Fighter 6?
Nakayama: So, to clarify, while there may have been people working on World Tour in the past, and just because those people's, I guess, bandwidth may be freed up, doesn't necessarily mean that they could easily transfer those resources into something completely different, because the World Tour development required a completely unique skill set, and those skill sets may not necessarily transfer over to the content creation of other things. So it doesn't necessarily equate in that sense.
Speaking of other content, I know people have been really excited about new costumes. Now, I know that when Ingrid was introduced, there were jerseys for all characters, but are there any plans to sort of maybe focus on new costumes or bringing more outfits for the characters anytime soon?
Nakayama: Yeah. So, we do plan to deliver and create outfits and costumes in an equal amount for all the existing characters. We have a high quality benchmark that we're trying to achieve and make sure that we reach that. So, we hope that we can get by the patience of the players out there, but this is something that we’re striving for.
So, we're getting to see Yasmine here at Evo today, but the remaining DLC characters of this pack are all new to the series. And thus, we don't really know or have an idea of how they will play. Could you give us a little tease of the archetypes or just generally how Arjun, Bosch, and Tifa will play in Street Fighter 6?
Nakayama: So, in terms of the fighting styles and what you can expect about their play style, we can say that they definitely feel unique and different from the existing roster.
Arjun is a very unique character that's going to feel very different from everyone else. And we can't go into specifics, but I will say that there will be some kind of dancing element to his gameplay.
We can't go into specifics, but I will say that there will be some kind of dancing element to [Arjun's] gameplay. In terms of Tifa, he did speak on this previously at SGF, but she will utilize some sort of like Materia aspect from the FFVII series. And she will be different, but have a fighting style that kind of translates from the world of Final Fantasy VII into Street Fighter 6.
And for Bosch, for those who did enjoy World Tour, he was one of Luke's disciples. And while you were able to fight against him and you were able to see his fighting style through World Tour, he will have a completely different style from World Tour. So, you can expect something unique, different from that.
I know when previously we spoke, there weren't any plans to introduce any new mechanics because you're pretty happy with how the game is now. It seems like the player base, at least in the West, is wanting some changes to the Drive system, specifically Drive Rush. Are there any plans to sort of tweak that particular mechanic? And how much do you take player feedback into consideration when you do balances or patches?
Nakayama: So, in terms of any sort of major adjustments to system mechanics, the Drive system, as of now, there's really no plans to make any sort of changes. And to answer your question in terms of how much we listen to user feedback, it is something that we do pay attention to. We see people make comments on social media and, I don't know, surveys and whatnot, and that's something that we do listen to. And while we do take into consideration, we have a pretty large Battle team to actually analyze those requests and test through several battles through the Battle team to determine whether it is right or not.
Matsumoto: And not only that, we also pay attention, not just to pro tournaments, but also casual tournaments, kind of like influencer, or the New Challengers Tournaments maybe, stuff like that, and we make decisions based on the wide spectrum of how that could affect things.
Bringing things back to Yasmine for a second. I think a lot of people really are excited about this character because of the Filipino representation. Can you talk a little bit about the significance of having a Filipino character in Street Fighter and whether there was any sort of unique work that was done to make her feel authentic to the culture?
Nakayama: So, I guess the genesis of how this character was created all started with the desire to want to introduce a first-time Filipino character into this series. And we want to do that because it's the first time that we can have this kind of representation, but also there's a pretty significant amount of people within the FGC who kind of have this kind of Filipino roots, and so we wanted to kind of hype up the scene with this particular audience. And beyond that, we wanted to introduce a brand new martial arts style that many people with Filipino or Indonesian backgrounds are maybe familiar with. So we did a lot of research and homework and even asked for help for professional martial artists who use that Filipino style for the mocap. And beyond that, we even talked internally to people who do have that kind of background, Filipino background, and learn more about their culture and what they value and how important family is to them.
[Yasmine's creation] all started with the desire to want to introduce a first-time Filipino character into the series. I think visually, Yasmine's design seems to pull from a lot of different aspects of Filipino culture and the area itself. I know some people were speaking about how her hairstyle seems to be inspired by the hawk or the eagle or even the flag, how they turn it upside down during wartime. Is all of that correct? And how deep did you go into bringing these little details to her visual design?
Nakayama: So, yeah, we're definitely paying attention to some of the theories, the hypothesis made by the players out there, and analyzing the Tagalog movement and stuff. Actually, Yasmine, compared, in relation to some of the other characters within the roster, they made a lot more design attempts of this character. A character like Arjun, actually, they came up with relatively quickly, and they were able to solidify his final design at an early stage. But with Yasmine, even though they started off as setting up a school girl in the Philippines, they did a lot of different attempts to see what could actually work for her character design.
And in terms of design direction, we wanted her to... maybe make her stand out, almost, within the Year 4 roster and almost feel like a protagonist or like a main character in, like, a Japanese manga or something. And yeah, we put a lot of effort into her.
This character pack is all new characters to Street Fighter 6. And I was just wondering from the development side, in your opinion, do you enjoy the process of creating a character from scratch for a game like Street Fighter 6, or do you like the challenge of taking an existing character and molding them into kind of the Street Fighter 6 mold?
Nakayama: Yeah. So, they're both difficult in different, unique ways. Obviously, making a brand new character is difficult. But in terms of how we determine what past characters are, the game system of the game that we're working on is so important, right? Like, Street Fighter 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 all have very different game systems, and sometimes it may not work for a certain character that appeared in a past game to come into a game like Street Fighter 6. But by creating new characters, we feel like they're able to kind of expand the world a little bit. And if they have an unlimited amount of budget and time, they'll continue to try to bring everyone back. But yeah, we do what we can.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze. Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
