At the conclusion of the Capcom Pro Tour 2019 North American Regional Finals in Las Vegas, Street Fighter series executive producer and Blanka lover Yoshinori Ono took the stage to share the next highly anticipated announcement for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. The next character to join the roster is Gill, the main boss of Street Fighter III and the leader of the secret Illuminati organization. Gill is a master of both pyrokinesis and cryokinesis, which is reflected in the perfect symmetry of his colorful and buff body. Gill is ready to step out of the shadows of his Secret Society and revel himself to the world, and his moveset of ice and fire skills looks super cool. Hopefully he won’t be crazy overpowered compared to the (mostly) mortal roster.
Gill’s fighting style looks similar to his brother Urien, who joined the Street Fighter V roster with the addition of Season 1. Gill has a move like Violence Knee Drop, but with a bit more flourish. Gill also has several projectiles with an elemental theme, and in his gameplay trailer Gill is shown sending out ice or fire projectiles that control space horizontally or diagonally upwards. It looks like Gill’s icicle projectiles “freeze” the opponent’s stun meter, similar to fellow Illuminati member and frozen fighter Kolin’s V-Trigger ice effects. His normals are elementally infused too–his fierce punch his fiery, and his standing roundhouse is cold as ice. This sets up Gill’s unique “Retribution” mechanic, which works on the cash of ice and fire and elementally affects his V-Skill and V-Trigger abilities.
Gill has two V-Skills. The first is “Divine Comet,” which gives Gill a projectile based on the player’s choice of his pyro or cryo-powered V-Triggers. The fire-based option will consume the enemy in flames that deal grey damage over time, and the ice comet freezes the enemy’s stun gauge, similar to fellow Street Fighter Kolin’s V-Trigger ice attacks. His second V-Skill is simply called “Blocking,” and looks to give Gill a parry that will let him negate incoming damage from projectiles and high, mid, and low level attacks, and can be chained Daigo full-parry style.
Gill’s V-Trigger I is “Primal Fire,” which gives Gill access to a fiery launcher and a flaming projectile that falls directly downwards to increase the combo potential. In this state Gill’s fire specials set the enemy on fire without Gill having to spend meter for their EX versions. His V-Trigger II is “Ice of Doom,” following the theme of elemental polarity. The “Ice of Doom” option gives Gill a new ice projectile called Tree of Frost that will trigger Gill’s “Retribution” mechanic and wall bounce the opponent if he’s on fire. Gill also gets a grounded ice attack that looks a bit like Kolin’s Diamond Dust V-Trigger I projectile and functions like a land mine–walking into this will definitely lead to a massive combo.
The gameplay trailer also shows Gill’s Critical Art, which thankfully is not “Resurrection” but does give an appropriately dramatic look at Gill’s triple decker angel wings. Gill joins the Street Fighter V roster in December 2019, along with the Tower of Babel-themed “Sun Chase Moon” Stage (and hopefully the 2nd Impact music that’s playing in the trailer) and a series of unique costumes.
It didn’t pass without notice that Gill has two V-Skills, and after Ono revealed the trailer for Gill he shared the night’s second major announcement: Street Fighter V: Champion Edition is coming to Steam and PlayStation 4 on February 14, 2020 and includes all the Street Fighter content to date (with a couple costume exceptions). The next iteration of Street Fighter V will retail for $29.99, or $24.99 for an “upgrade kit” that gives access the Champion Edition DLC as it becomes available. The systems update and any game modes new with Champion Edition are free to players who already have Arcade Edition or the base game.
The major systems update is the addition of a second V-Skill for every character on the roster, which is a major part of a broader balance update that should add some more depth the the game and shake up the current meta. Perennial character Chun Li gets back her Hasanshu, a move currently absent from her toolkit, and new characters like Zeku get… a karate cat? It looks extremely cute and is reminiscent of Strider Hiryu’s Tetrapodal Robo-Panther in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. On a sour note, Rashid looks to be getting even more corner escape options. The balance changes go live with Gill’s release in December, likely to launch Season 5 with a fresh balance patch at the close of Season 4 and the beginning of qualifiers for the Intel World Open, partnered with the 2020 Olympics in Japan.
According to the trailer, Street Fighter V: Champion Edition will have a playable roster of 40 characters, but with the addition of Gill in December the total characters in the game only come to 39. It’s a good reason to speculate that Capcom has another new character to reveal at this year’s Capcom Cup, which will be hosted by Kenny Omega in Los Angeles from December 13th through 15th.