Street Fighter 5 looks to usher in a new era of DLC

Capcom has quite a history of complicating things when it comes to their Street Fighter games, particularly during the online era. It always seems that there is a bigger, better version on the way which usually segments the player base due to compatibility issues between the different editions. That isn’t going to be the case with the upcoming Street Fighter 5 and Capcom wants to make sure that everyone knows that early on.

Capcom recently outlined their plans for the game. First off, the initial release disc is the only disc or version of the game that you will ever need to play SF5. Any system or balance changes that will happen during its lifetime will be offered as free updates to all players. This means that day one buyers won’t have to upgrade to a bigger and better version in order to stay active in the SF5 online community.

Although there is a variety of DLC planned for the game, you can earn all of it within the game without paying any additional money (just expect to put in a little work). Characters, costumes, and whatever else they decide to offer will be available for purchase both with real world currency and in-game currency that you earn just by playing the game. Capcom says that this extra content will be rolled out continuously throughout the game’s lifetime.

It has also been revealed that the game will launch with a 16 character roster. We have already seen eight of those characters revealed: Ryu, Chun Li, Bison, Charlie, Birdie, Cammy, Ken and Necalli. They also stated that four of these 16 will be completely new characters, so we have 5 more returning fighters and 3 more new ones yet to be revealed.