During their appearance at this morning’s PlayStation Experience keynote, Capcom revealed a new character for their upcoming 2D fighter Street Fighter V: F.A.N.G., an eccentric and extremely lanky martial artist who looks equal parts Shaw Brothers film villain and Dragonball comic relief. An official post on Capcom’s blog by digital media manager Haunts goes over the details of the cast’s boisterous new addition.
F.A.N.G.’s voice files were originally discovered in datamine conducted by fans several months back, but his appearance and play style were a mystery until today. His trailer can be viewed here:
F.A.N.G. is an assassin hired by Street Fighter’s classic villain, M. Bison, to oversee the Shadaloo organization’s covert operations. He seems to have replaced series classic Sagat as Bison’s right-hand man, as well, judging from the notable absence of the Muay Thai master from the lineup of statues in the trailer’s new stage.
F.A.N.G. uses an array of poison-based attacks and tricky feints to confuse his opponents. Poison is a new addition to the Street Fighter series and a relatively rare feature in fighting games in general, adding a “damage-over-time” component to F.A.N.G.’s special attacks. The serpentine assassin also possesses a shimmy that seems to bypass projectiles and other moves with strange animations, including a bizarre super ability that makes him look like a flying bird flapping its wings.
Capcom also revealed new details on Street Fighter V’s in-game currency at the keynote. In-game currency, or “Fight Money” can be acquired through accomplishing certain objectives in the game and can be used to purchase new characters and other features. Real-life money, or Zenny, can be used to purchase those features whenever players desire. Zenny will never be required to access in-game content, but it will make it easier to unlock. The full system was described by Haunts as such:
Capcom has a long term strategy to support SFV with new content over time, and the in-game currency allows everyone to choose how they get it. To recap, there are two types:
Fight Money: Can only be obtained by playing the game. Can be used to earn new content for free.
Zenny: Can be purchased with real money, and used to access new content immediately.So when it comes to post-launch gameplay content, everyone has two choices:
Accumulate Fight Money through gameplay, and use it to earn gameplay related content, such as new characters, for free.
Purchase Zenny with real money, in order to gain access to the content immediately.100 Zenny essentially equals $1. However, Zenny will be sold in several denominations, giving everyone choice and even bonus amounts depending on how much is purchased! Some of the options are listed below:
100 Zenny = Purchase for $0.99 / €0.99 / £0.79
550 Zenny = Purchase for $4.99/€4.99/£3.99 (receive a 50 Zenny bonus)
1200 Zenny = Purchase for $9.99/€9.99/£7.99 (receive a 200 Zenny bonus)
4000 Zenny = Purchase for $29.99/ €29.99/£24.99 (receive a 1000 Zenny bonus)
In addition, project director Yoshinori Ono unveiled the identities of the six mystery characters he revealed at Paris Games Week back in October. Alex, Guile, Ibuki, Balrog, Juri, and Urien will all return from previous Street Fighter games to join the cast, which corroborates with the datamines of each of these characters discovered by fans on NeoGAF shortly before Paris Games Week.
Capcom has stated that all six characters will be included in a Season Pass, which is available for purchase today for North America and at the game’s launch for Europe. Players who do not wish to purchase the season pass can acquire each character for free through Fight Money.
As a reminder, all of these characters are earnable through gameplay for free, but for those of you who want to get them right as they release, the 2016 Season Pass goes on sale today in North America for pre-purchase so be sure to check it out. It will be available to European consumers at launch.
For $29.99 / €29.99 / £24.99, SFV players get all six additional characters, each with a premium costume, in addition to an exclusive PS4 theme. Each character would cost 600 Zenny individually, and each premium costume would cost 400 Zenny individually, making this a $60 value for half the price! As a final incentive, in North America, if you purchase the 2016 Season Pass before February 16 you will receive three PS4 avatars (Ryu, Chun-Li, and M. Bison) for free!
For our European consumers, we have a special deal with the Street Fighter V Deluxe Edition available to pre-order today. The Deluxe Edition contains the full game and the 2016 Season Pass and will be available to pre-order at a special 10% discounted price (until launch) of £71.99 / €89.99. After launch, it will be £79.99 / €99.99 so act now if you want to take advantage of the deal!
Finally, Capcom’s end-of-the-year pro tour event Capcom Cup is taking place tomorrow, December 6. The world’s mightiest warriors will compete against one another for a $120,000 first place prize in Street Fighter IV. Today, however, they will partake in other games like Street Fighter V. Fighting game hub Shoryuken.com has provided a detailed guide for those interested in Capcom Cup, which can be read here. The event’s stream can be viewed here.
Capcom Cup attendees, meanwhile, are posting their first impressions on F.A.N.G. on Shoryuken’s message boards, including descriptions of his moves and combos.
Street Fighter V is set to release in February 2016 for PC and PlayStation 4.