Street Fighter V roster grows in 2021 with the return of Dan

Support for Street Fighter V is continuing through 2020 and into 2021 with the release of Dan Hibiki early next year.

According to a state-of-play message from Street Fighter V producer Shuhei Matsumoto, Dan will be joining the cast as a DLC character. Players will be able to pick up Dan Hibiki this upcoming February. He will be the first character of the game’s fifth and final season of content available. Other veterans of the Street Fighter franchise, including Rose, Oro, and Akira are set to join the game this season as well, but release dates for them have not been specified.

More news about next season’s content will be coming early next year according to Matsumoto. Assuming that this news arrives before Dan is released for players, the expectation is that more about the game’s upcoming season will be revealed in January.

Fighting through the year

The state-of-play video also goes over the difficulties the Street Fighter team has faced over the course of the year. In it, Matsumoto said that “we have been adjusting our development style to prioritize the safety of the development team, their family members and partners.” The studio has been making these adjustments while continuing development and support for Street Fighter V.

A message from Street Fighter V Producer Shuhei Matsumoto: pic.twitter.com/aSqZMK3BRh

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) December 18, 2020

Ask any member of the fighting games community, and they’ll tell you that 2020 has been a rough year. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, tournaments have been canceled or postponed, preventing fans from getting together to compete. While it may not seem like a big deal, tournaments are the lifeblood of many fighting games. Without them, competitive scenes die out, fandoms wither, and communities vanish into nothing.

Street Fighter is an exemplary franchise, but it has also found difficulty. Besides not having any tournaments this year, Street Fighter V has been left behind in player’s homes due to its lackluster netcode.