Street Fighter 5 Release Date, Characters: Preview Teases Ryu, Chun-Li, and Charlie Nash

By Shawn Schuster
Street Fighter 5
Street Fighter 5 gets 1.02 patch DLC update.

Street Fighter 5 is currently in development with no official release confirmed, but a recent interview with Japanese gaming site Famitsu reveals the introduction of the Charlie Nash character and some new expected gameplay shown off in the coming months.

According to the interview conducted at last weekend's TaiPei Game Show and translated by MajinTenshnhan of Eventhubs.com, Capcom's Yoshinori Ono talked in depth about his opinion on having a large roster for the upcoming game. Despite the fact that Ono previously worked on Ultra Street Fighter 4 which featured 44 selectable fighters, he says that he'd rather see a small number in Street Fighter 5 for several reasons.

"The first reason is, they cost a lot of money to make," Ono explained. "And the second reason, which is the main one, is that with so many characters in the game, working on counter-strategies in match-ups takes so much time, that we're in danger of leaving newcomers completely behind."

Walking that fine line between satisfying veteran players and attracting new ones is always tricky for game studios, but Ono says that he feels like fewer fighters will put more focus on the powers of the new characters. Plus, it's not as overwhelming for new players to jump in and learn every intricacy of a few players rather than be overwhelmed with dozens and dozens of characters.

But it's the mention of Charlie Nash as a playable character that has many long-time fans excited, but also a bit confused. According to the interview, while Nash hasn't been a prominent character in the past, his inclusion has been in high demand for a long time.

Heavy.com included Charlie among the top ten characters they wanted to see in Ultra Street Fighters 4, and he was listed as the 21st most-requested Street Fighter side character to be added to the series as playable in Namco's official poll for Tekken X Street Fighter.

And after a recent exhibition match between Daigo "The Beast" Umehara and Bruce "GamerBee" Hsiang at the TaiPei Game Show, we got to see both Ryu and Chun-Li as playable characters as well.

That match showed off some of the first gameplay from the upcoming game, but not all who saw it were happy with what they saw. Many viewers called the game "slow" and "sluggish."

"Watching some SF5 footage and it feels really slow paced," one Twitter follower said, as reported by Kotaku. Other suggestions from fans included reducing the fireball glow and keeping the Street Fighter 2 and Street Fighter 4 gameplay alive. Since the game is still in development, it's not known whether the pace of gameplay we saw during the demonstration will be kept for release.

Ono mentions in the Famitsu interview that the team hopes to show off Charlie Nash's gameplay in the coming months, although no date has been given.

Street Fighter 5 will be a PlayStation 4/Windows exclusive that was officially revealed during the 2014 PlayStation Experience event on December 6, 2014. The game is expected to release later this year. 

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