Street Fighter Producer Had "Revolutionary" Idea For Series Return

Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono, one of the faces behind the Street Fighter series, has admitted that 2009's Street Fighter IV could have been an entirely different experience he thought was "revolutionary" at the time.

In a Eurogamer interview during EGX 2019, Ono revealed that Street Fighter IV could have returned as "a turn-based simulation." Ono thought that bringing the franchise back with turn-based mechanics would have been revolutionary, though he admitted that convincing Capcom was "really, really difficult."

Per a translator, Ono said Capcom at that time--around the late '90s and early aughts--was "passed [the point of] making fighting games in general for a while, let alone just Street Fighter." To get a new entry off the ground, Ono talked to his then-boss Keiji Inafune and former-president-now-chairman Kenzo Tsujimoto, who greenlit him for a new Street Fighter title.

Though SF4 managed to bring the series back into renewed focus, Ono said there were other ideas on the table for the series's return. "I did have an idea that I thought could be revolutionary to turn the game more into a turn-based simulation, so you would take the moves you want to do and put them together like blocks," Ono said via a translator. "Then they would run automatically, but obviously we didn't make that in the end."

Eurogamer's Martin Robinson also asked Ono whether he had other ideas for Street Fighter's return, like a first-person view or a gritty reboot. He did not clarify anything but laughed at the first-person idea. The 3DS version of Super Street Fighter IV included an over-the-shoulder view, and Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers on Nintendo Switch featured a first-person perspective.

As previously reported, Street Fighter 6 was not revealed during EVO 2019, which ran from August 2-4. Ono confirmed that the development team is more concerned with Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. Valve leaked SFV: AE's latest DLC characters, which include Poison, Lucia, and E. Honda, ahead of the EVO 2019 reveal.