Ultra Street Fighter IV is the newest iteration / update to the massively popular 2.5D competitive fighting video game, Super Street Fighter IV. This will mark the 4th update in the Street Fighter IV series, extending the life of the competitive fighter. Developed by Capcom, the developers who brought Devil May Cry, Mega Man and Monster Hunter to life, and co-developed by Dimps who also worked on Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter X Tekken, Ultra Street Fighter IV Launched on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on June 3rd 2014 and June 4th 2014 respectively in North America and Europe.
The game will see a retail release on August 5th 2014 in North America and August 7th 2014 in Japan, it will also be made available by digital download to PC on August 8th 2014. Befitting of it’s roots in gaming culture, Ultra Street Fighter IV also came to Japan on April 18th 2014 in the form of a Taito Type X3 arcade cabinet. Ultra Street Fighter IV is available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows with no mention of a PS4 and Xbox One port.
Ultra Street Fighter IV was first announced to the public during the EVO’s (Evolution Championship Series – an annual eSports event that hosts tournaments that cater exclusively to fighting games in the competitive space) called Ultra Street Fighter IV that would serve as an update to Super Street IV and would be available in early 2014.
Slated to release digitally first then later arrive at retail for consoles, the PC build of the game wouldn’t be available in either format until August of 2014, the delay was put down to further refining and finishing development on the console build of the game so that it would be ready for EVO 2014, the setting that serves as the pillar upon which the competitive Street Fighter space is built.
Players that already own the previous Street Fighter titles, specifically IV and Super Street Fighter IV can pay to upgrade their currently existing copy of the game to the Ultra Street Fighter IV. Following popular demand and feedback from fans, Capcom announced that they were indeed going to abandon the Games For Windows – Live and that Ultra Street Fighter IV would be accessed through Steam Works, this was first announced in a tweet from a Capcom Employee on twitter. A statement reads, “We’ll be transitioning from GFWL to Steam.”
The usual changes found in previous Street Fighter updates are to be found in Ultra Street Fighter IV. These range from increases and decreases in character recovery times, attacking speeds and the speed at which some abilities are executed. This latest update will introduce 6 new stages and a total of 5 new characters, Rolento, Elena, Hugo, the ever controversial Poison (these four characters appeared in the cross over title, Street Fighter X Tekken) and Decapre. Decapre is making her first appearance in a video game in Ultra Street Fighter IV as a member of M.Bison’s Dolls. The four characters that appeared in Street Fighter X Tekken will be altered versions of those found in SF X T, changing their gameplay mechanics to be more in line with the games slower skill based pace.
Given that each individual character has their own plot to follow, this can’t be realistically covered with an ever expanding roster. The following briefly sums up the experience.
Following the events that unfolded in Street Fighter II and M Bison surviving his encounter with Akuma, S.I.N Corp has began yet another fighting tournament with the intent of drawing out the worlds strongest warriors to aid in the completion of the Blece project. The tournament however is a cover, a sham to lure out the warrior Ryu who holds the Satsui no Hadō, also known as the Surge of Murderous Intent. S.I.N belive that analyzing this Dark Hado is all that’s needed to complete the BLECE bio-weapon.
Gameplay remains largely the same at it’s core with the fundamental attacking, defending and movement protocols staying the same. The exception being the tweaks that are being implemented to adjust player strength, special ability strengths and recovery times. A few new gameplay elements have been added, and others removed in the update. Numerous pieces of fan feedback (similar to that which recommended scrapping GFWL) have been used to change some core mechanics in the game.
In a video on Capcom Fighters, a number of features were covered and shown alongside some gameplay to better show the changes. One such new feature is Ultra Combo Double, that lets players use both Ultras “simultaneously” at the sacrifice of the total power. Another ability featured in the video is the Red Focus, this is the same as the standard Focus Attacks available to players, but it can now soak up more damage allowing for players to “tank” incoming damage and output a powerful attack.
A tactical addition is the inclusion of the Delayed Wakeup, this means that a player can stay down on the ground slightly longer than before when knocked down, buying them previous frames of animation that could save them from a particularly lethal combo or ultra attack. Perhaps the most important change however is the addition of the Edition Select feature. This will allow the player to choose a character that will retain its features from previous Street Fighter IV builds, meaning that players can potentially play the same character that has fundamentally differing gameplay mechanics.
The feedback for the game came directly from fans of the game playing at test locations that were exclusive for information gathering.
New Characters:
Elena
Hugo
Poison
Rolento
Decapre
Returning fighters:
Abel
Adon
Akuma
Balrog
Blanka
Cammy
Chun-Li
Cody
Crimson Viper
Dan
Dee Jay
Dhalsim
Dudley
E. Honda
El Fuerte
Evil Ryu
Fei Long
Gen
Gouken
Guile
Guy
Hakan
Ibuki
Juri
Ken
M. Bison
Makoto
Oni
Rose
Rufus
Ryu
Sagat
Sakura
Seth
T. Hawk
Vega
Yang
Yun
Zangief
Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.