Capcom is breaking with tradition following the release of the latest Street Fighter 5 character. The developer has released three previous character passes for the game, each including six new fighters released over the course of a year. However, Capcom has now confirmed that there won’t be a fourth Street Fighter 5 season pass. Instead, new fighters would need to be purchased individually going forward.
Kage can only be purchased individually with Fight Money or real currency. We currently have no plans to offer a Season Pass for the 2019 DLC characters. Stay tuned for information on future updates!
— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) December 20, 2018
The announcement spurs from Kage, the 19th new challenger to be added to the game. He released without a corresponding character pass. Instead, he’s just available in-game for $5 or 100,000 Fight Money.
This hasn’t gone over well with some fans, particularly among the more tournament minded. Season passes give organizers an easy way to ensure that they have every fighter they’ll need to keep operations going. If Capcom is truly moving to a more modular structure, it means that players and organizers will have to be more on the ball to keep up with the game. It also means that keeping up with the game might become a more expensive endeavor, as Fight Money isn’t the easiest currency to grind out for free.
https://twitter.com/XKiraDatamining/status/1037675478319026176
However, there is another option floating around that could explain Capcom’s shift. According to a few leakers and data miners, Capcom is currently planning for a “Super” edition of Street Fighter 5 to hit this time next year. This might supersede the Street Fighter 5 season pass model since it’d be an all in one package, similar to past re-releases in the franchise.
The leak mentioned that there’d be one new character in Season 4 (Kage) and five legacy characters. Those include Q, Necro, Oro, C. Viper, and Sodom. Not an unlikely roster by any stretch of the imagination, and it all comes from a leaker who correctly predicted Ridley and Simon Belmont heading to Smash Bros. Either way, we’ll know for whether any of this can be trusted once Capcom reveals the next character in 2019.