Even after four years, Street Fighter 5 still has a little fight left in it moving into the next generation. With season five, the final content season, just a few more characters will be joining the roster before Street Fighter 5's support ends. It's been a long run for Capcom's premier fighting game this generation; ending in fall 2021 with five seasons of content, two special edition re-releases, and 44 total characters added to the roster. As for Street Fighter 6, it's going to be a long time before the next iteration releases.
While many assumed that Street Fighter 5's support would end around Kage's release, Capcom surprised fans when a new season and character pass was announced. Kage was the only fighter to release strictly standalone prior to the actual character pass, so many assumed he'd be the last character for the game's development lifespan. Now, with season 4 ending and yet another season on the way into the next console generation, Street Fighter 6 is clearly much farther away than fans might've thought before.
Street Fighter 5's Life Extends Into 2021
Recently, Capcom announced the final season for Street Fighter 5, extending the game's development lifespan out to fall of 2021. Season five brings with it five characters: Dan, Rose, Oro, Akira (from Rival Schools), and an as-yet-unannounced fifth character. Rose and Akira will both bring their own stages, along with a new Capcom Pro Tour stage for 2021. Plus players can expect the usual balance changes at the beginning/middle/end of each season as necessary. Once again Street Fighter is extending the lifespan of its game past the console generation's life cycle, and there's been no announcement (yet) of Street Fighter 5 making the jump to PS5.
Granted, Ultra Street Fighter 4 extended its lifespan that same way on PS3/Xbox 360, but it does hint at the fact that Street Fighter 6 is likely farther away than fans might like. One of the biggest problems with Street Fighter 5's release, two years after Ultra Street Fighter 4, was that it felt lacking in content. The game launched without a singleplayer campaign, no arcade mode, 16 characters, and limited trial combos for all characters. Of course for the hardcore fans this wasn't inherently an issue, but casual Street Fighters were left with nothing but trials and online play. While many of these features were added in post-launch updates, the lack of content didn't help Street Fighter 5's reception.
Street Fighter 6 Is Farther Off Than Expected
Capcom ideally wouldn't want to make the same mistake twice with the next Street Fighter game, even though the monetization employed throughout Street Fighter 5's DLC was a great success for the company and did partially fund the Capcom Pro Tour. Releasing Street Fighter 6 in a similar state to the fifth game, in 2021 or beyond, would garner far more criticism and blowback from fans. Regardless, Street Fighter 6 would do well to start with a robust character roster and gameplay experience, and build from there. There's nothing necessarily wrong with season passes or the traditional DLC approach, but a launch like Street Fighter 5 for the next game won't fly. Especially considering all of the other games with predatory DLC plans and microtransaction controversies that have come out since 2016.
Street Fighter 6 is almost certainly in development at this point, but it likely won't release on PS5 (or Xbox Series X/PC) in the next year. Previous Street Fighter releases have not had much lag time between mainline entries, with Street Fighter 5 launching two years after the release of Ultra Street Fighter 4. The unfortunate truth is that Street Fighter 5, despite making some significant improvements over the course of its lifespan, was still a lackluster launch that fans were vocally agitated by. With Street Fighter 5 extending yet another season into 2021, it's very possible Street Fighter 6 could be delayed or simply require more development time to perfect.
Extending development time on a fighting game is never a bad thing, but it does mean one of the weaker Street Fighter games in the series' history is going to be sticking around for just a bit longer.
Street Fighter 5's season five starts in winter 2020.