Hiya!

Recently, a rumor for Street Fighter 6’s Season 6 DLC roster has been allegedly leaked to the public. Time will tell if and when this is determined to be true but, if it is, there are some people who are going to be very happy if this is who Capcom is going to include. The list of fighters includes a new character, R. Mika, Vega/Claw, Sakura, Elena and M. Bison. As I’ve always loved playing as Vega/Claw despite him being low tier in Street Fighter V and I love the idea of Sakura being a little older and sporting long hard, I do want these characters to show up in the next season of DLC.

There is, however, one character on the list I hope Capcom doesn’t include at the moment. That would be the Dictator of Shadaloo himself, M. Bison. While I understand it does feel weird for a Street Fighter game to be without the series’ most consistent villain, I just don’t think it would be great for Street Fighter 6’s currently because of the in-game story.

I do have to explain what happened in-between Street Fighter V and Street Fighter 6 to give you a good idea of where the story stands now. Yeah, Street Fighter III was supposed to happen between the previous two games but, hey! It seems Capcom kind of forgot because they haven’t included any characters from that game yet! Anyway, Street Fighter V’s main story campaign, A Shadow Falls, has all of the heroes invading Shadaloo’s main base and Ryu taking out M. Bison. Without its leader, Shadaloo falls into disarray.

Ed leaves his mentor, Balrog and forms Neo Shadaloo with other Bison clones. FANG goes into hiding and gets a new apprentice in AKI. The biggest storyline development happens behind the scenes with Shadaloo previously unseen CFO, JP. He managed to get ahold of some of M. Bison’s Psycho Power and learned how to wield it without becoming totally corrupted by the power. Using his financial skills and various forms of subterfuge, JP has managed to keep his appearances as a benevolent head of an NGO, helping the country of Nayshall to enter the modern era, for better or worse.

JP then frames Ken Masters for a terrorist bombing, leading the latter to go into hiding. JP then orchestrates an annual tournament with the official reason of bringing Nayshall into the world stage. However, it’s actually a plot for underground betting and JP’s organization to funnel more money into his criminal enterprises.

As you can see, JP is the current main villain of Street Fighter 6. He’s also a very different bad guy from the series. He has no plans of taking over the world. He doesn’t even really care about fighting. He’s all about using deception and sophistry to get what he wants. He can still throw down as he also uses his own brand of Psycho Power. In fact, his moveset shows how much he detests hand-to-hand combat as most of his moves rely on keeping his opponent away with various projectiles.

So, if M. Bison is going to be returning in Street Fighter 6, what happens to JP? I guess it could be all about M. Bison trying to claw his way back and taking out JP. While that may seem intriguing, the problem is, if Capcom does do that, JP becomes a secondary villain to M. Bison rather than being Street Fighter 6’s big baddie! That shouldn’t be the case because he’s already an ingenious and worthy villain! He also already has his story intertwined with other characters.

I’ve already talked about how he framed Ken but he’s not the only one JP has ties with. There’s also another side story which popped up while the Season 1 DLC characters were being released. This is all about Ed’s Neo Shadaloo group. After the events of Street Fighter V, Ed gathered other experiments and made a vow to find and release others like him. However, despite Shadaloo’s destruction, former members of the organization are looking for Ed and they want him to be M. Bison’s successor.

This story works well as long as M. Bison is out of the picture as the members of the fallen Shadaloo have a reason to recruit Ed. If M. Bison returns, they wouldn’t want that, would they? After all, why set a copy of your deceased leader to lead your group if your deceased leader comes back from the grave? Once again, Capcom would be actively hurting their current storylines if they did bring back the Dictator.

Additionally, there are so many other characters Capcom can pull out of their pool and become the next new challenger. I personally would love to see some Final Fight characters. Sure, Kimberly is Guy-esque so I don’t think we need to see the sneaker wearing ninja anytime soon. However, characters like Cody would make sense due to the game being partially set in Metro City, and it just so happens that Cody is the current Mayor of the area. Since Sodom’s truck can be found around Metro City, why not bring him back and not just as some costume you can outfit your avatar with?

In fact, I would implore Capcom to try looking at some of their more oddball characters like Sodom, Necro, Necalli, C. Viper and many more just to spice things up. I do know fans are bound to complain that “X character got in but Y character didn’t” and that’s going to be par for the course. However, with Street Fighter 6 already experimenting with some strange gimmicks, like Manon’s Medal system, Jamie’s Drink mechanics, why not give lesser known characters fun tricks to see if they would benefit from them?

I’m not saying I want to permanently ban M. Bison from becoming selectable in Street Fighter 6 in the future. What I’m saying they shouldn’t do it right now. Give some time for JP to soak in being evil and allow Ed’s arc to develop. It would also be a good idea to add some wacky characters instead of someone as well-established as M. Bison. I mean, can’t we wait until Season 5 when it would be one of the most dramatic returns in fighting game history? Just saying.

Byee!

What are your thoughts on M. Bison possibly returning in Street Fighter 6 as Season 2 DLC? Let me know in the comments section below!