Taking a break from beating up the cast of Tekken, the Master of Fist will be returning home in the near future.
Several months ago, when Urien was released as DLC for Street Fighter V, it felt like a book being closed. The “season” had ended. Since the game’s release nearly a year ago, six DLC fighters were announced and he was the last of them. Any other video game company would just put the game to rest and work on the next project, but not Capcom. They made a pretty big deal about Street Fighter V’s longevity as a counter to its initial incomplete form and intend to trickle in content for hopefully years to come.
Now we know that they weren’t lying. A teaser trailer has been released for Akuma's upcoming reveal, which will take place at the PlayStation Experience in Anaheim on December 3-4. He’ll be fully playable to the fans there and will hopefully lead to even more character announcements.
While the teaser doesn’t show much other than the spark effects of his trademark Raging Demon attack, the most telling thing is the kanji that appears on his back. The classic form of Akuma usually has the red kanji tattoo glowing through his gi, meaning “of heaven.” When he goes into his Shin Akuma form (ie. no longer holding back and fighting at full force), the tattoo transforms into something translating to “godlike being.” That’s the symbol we see in this footage.
In other words, not only is Akuma showing up, but we’re getting his amped-up boss form.
Akuma first showed up in Super Street Fighter II Turbo in 1994 as the game’s difficult secret boss. Since then, he’s become one of the more important figures in the series, seen as the ultimate opponent. A violent enigma, he appears focused on intense training, solitude, and finding the perfect rival to face in a fight to the death. He’s since spent much of the series trying to push Ryu towards the dark side of their fighting style’s training in order to mold him into the warrior with the power and skill to potentially give Akuma the honorable death he’s been thirsting for.
Despite not appearing in Street Fighter V until now, Akuma’s recently been busy as a marquee guest character in Tekken 7, which will get its home release within the next few months. Even before that, Akuma’s been all about being one of Capcom’s go-to crossover guys. His appearance in X-Men: Children of the Atom, which kicked off the entire Marvel vs. Capcom series of games, made #1 in our list of the top guest characters in fighting games.
Akuma also made #3 in our ranking of all the Street Fighter characters.
In terms of other major Street Fightercharacters yet to show up in Street Fighter V, we’ve yet to see the likes of Sagat, Sakura, Dan Hibiki, and Blanka.
Gavin Jasper still wants to see Q show up. Damn it, it’s been 17 and a half years! Follow Gavin on Twitter.