Also thoughts on what happened to Vega, Gouken and Haggar
Bosch is one of the four cast members revealed in the recent Season 4 DLC character announcements for Street Fighter 6, and this was foreshadowed by the fact that you can choose to resurrect him as part of Ingrid’s World Tour missions.
I paused for 10 seconds while deciding if I would ultimately resurrect Bosch or not… Ingrid tells you the choice is entirely up to you… I chose to save Bosch because I don’t want anyone to die, not even fictional Bosch, who I thought was mostly a nothing and boring character, contributing little to the game beyond serving as JP’s puppet.
Our readers didn’t think much of Bosch, as he finished near the bottom in a poll we ran before the Summer Games Fest announcement, receiving 30 out of 9,032 votes, or 0.33%.
Crazy as it was, I saved Bosch and he… undid a bunch of stuff that happened in the core part of Street Fighter 6’s main story leading him to getting blown up. That was kind of cool, but it did make me think, what was the point of the game then?
To learn that JP, Shadaloo’s Chief Financial Officer, is the true villain? If so… you could argue that it’s pretty great writing actually, something the series hasn’t been known for, because Capcom had legit reason to be pissed off at JP Morgan. They put a real life bad thing that happened to them in the game… that’s pretty epic and a JP player would later go on to win a million dollars, because irony.
Speaking of Street Fighter’s story: JP and Shadaloo have actually been up to a lot with M. Bison’s return and having F.A.N.G and A.K.I. contact the remnant’s of Shadaloo’s members like Balrog (Boxer) and Vega (Claw). And oh hey, wait… what… happened to Vega?
So about those leaks with Tifa and everyone else…
The leaks were unfortunate, but wait a minute you say, LEAKS with an S? And yes, I say, potentially, anyway. Capcom had a few things to say about Tifa, but Arjun and Yasmine were as close to Blank Canvas characters as we get in the Street Fighter universe, as we know next to nothing about them and barely anything was shown.
Now lemme put a bunch of qualifiers in here: If you were forced to pivot to some other characters who potentially were leaked, one of the best ways you could do that is to announce two characters who are mostly Blank Canvases.
There’s no real chance those could leak, because you just made them up and put a short animation and short story together because your other characters got leaked.
I am not saying this happened, but… I am also saying that maybe this happened. Maybe Vega, Gouken and Haggar were included with Tifa, but only a handful of people really truly know if that was the case.
The leaker who put this information out there did it in hopes of getting the Season 4 DLC character lineup to change. I think it did.
Because I know for a fact that when characters leak, Capcom will sometimes pivot and change those characters. I am not saying it happened here, only that people can take a close look at Arjun and Yasmine and judge for themselves.
Leaks rarely go the way the leakers want them to, however Capcom previously showed us a great way of handling leaks back in 2011 when they leaked the identities of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3’s entire roster on their own website.
Capcom didn’t pivot then, they embraced it by using a quote from the TV show Seinfeld with Seth Killian, a Capcom employee at the time, responding to questions about the leaks of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3’s characters by saying “Yes! They’re real and they’re spectacular.”
Leaks are going to happen, handling them gracefully is truly hard… but… that’s kind of actually what happened here with *lemme double check their names* Arjun and Yasmine.
Why Blank Canvas characters are a great thing
Street Fighter 3 is one of the most beloved and greatest achievements in all of fighting games AND it featured mostly new cast members, e.g. characters who were at one point a completely Blank Canvas upon which the development team could craft their vision.
If you want a more recent example: Ingrid is as close to a Blank Canvas character as it got in Street Fighter lore, without being completely new. Upon her release Street Fighter 6 set a record on Steam for the most players at one time for a paid fighting game.
That’s a major accomplishment for the developers and it shows that under the leadership of Takayuki Nakayama and Shuhei Matsumoto, Street Fighter 6 is a thriving product. That’s ultimately the goal of the developers and these stats show they’re doing an excellent job.
While we all wish for our favorite characters to return, it’s pretty hard to argue against the developers’ approaches when they’re setting new records for success.
Also, in that DLC character poll we ran “New Original Character” was the 6th most-voted option by our audience.
If you want to see more on Bosch’s story line from World Tour, plus what happens with Ingrid in Street Fighter 6, it’s all in the video below.
