Rose makes the Street Fighter V Season 5 lineup

It's finally here, July 5, and the long-awaited reveal for Street Fighter V Season 5's DLC character lineup. The Street Fighter V Summer Update stream revealed four out of five upcoming characters and also shared some esports news.

The first character revealed was Dan Hibiki, the Saikyō-ryū practitioner that's considered one of the weakest characters in the franchise and was initially created as a parody of characters from a different fighting game. Next up was everyone's favorite fighting game psychic, Rose, who is a fan favorite and has been in numerous Street Fighter V leaks for years. Menat's master will also be getting a stage of her own, so Capcom hasn't dropped the ball on this one.

The third character takes us back to Street Fighter III: Third Strike, bringing the one-armed Japanese hermit Oro to the fight. The last character revealed during the event was a bit of a surprise, as I believe most fans were not expecting an addition from Rival Schools, even though it's been whispered online. Two decades ago, the last game in the series was released, but now its legacy returns with the inclusion of Akira Kazama to the Street Fighter V roster.

Fighting game commentators Steve "Tasty Steve" Scott and Jeremy "Vicious" Lopez joined the stream to announce Street Fighter League Season 3. This time, the 3v3 event will unite six teams of players from across the globe in the same hype fighting game action Street Fighter League is known for. Beginning in October, the series will run for 16 weeks with the World Finals scheduled for 2021 at Capcom Cup. The teams competing in the event are All In, UYU, Alpha 3, NASR Esports, Psycho Shinobi, and Dynamite. Those interested in merchandise also got to feast their eyes on Kenny Omega's Shoto Cosplay shirt and another in which he's playing against Dan on an arcade machine.

The specifics regarding when the next character reveal will take place wasn't announced, but Capcom has got lots of time to do so, considering the characters we do know are coming will be dropping through 2021. That's right, besides Dan (Winter 2020), all other Season 5 characters will be released in 2021. The Saikyō-ryū fighter will arrive alongside new costumes, a new CPT (2021) stage, new battle balance changes, and a new battle mechanic.

The Roadmap

Come Spring 2021; Rose drops with a few costumes and her stage. Summer 2021 has the inclusion of both Akira and Oro, together with their character-specific costumes and a stage for the former. The final character arrives in Fall 2021 along with more costumes, and more battle balance changes. You can check out the full presentation in the video below.

When Capcom first revealed Season 5, the general assumption was that we would receive all new characters within a relatively short period. However, it looks like the developer had other plans in mind.