Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition Might Let You Play As ‘Viewtiful Joe’

As many of you might be aware at this point, Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition is indeed real and will be coming with a bunch of new updates and features come 2018. However, what you might have missed in the frenzy are the specifics about Extra Battle and the rewards that it may potentially offer.

Our first serious glimpse of Extra Battle comes from the Shadaloo CRI, which featured an official description of Extra Battle from today’s press release and pictures from the new mode.

Here is the official description:

“In Extra Battle Mode, a new series of time exclusive challenges will be available for players to use their Fight Money for the chance to receive an exclusive premium outfit each month. Complete all four challenges each month and receive a special premium costume exclusive to this mode.”

As noted on the official Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition fact sheet, players will be able to unlock premium costumes each month in 2018. If this indeed true, players can expect to be in possession of 12 all-new costumes to use by the end of the year.

From the photos, we see that these challenges can have you fight opponents as generic as gold-colored Shadaloo soldiers, to surprising ones like…Viewtiful Joe.

Well, that’s interesting.

If we take Capcom’s words at face value, then “special premium costume” would entail a costume for a given character that alters there appearance, intro and voice clips — sort of like Premier Skins in Injustice 2. If that is indeed the case, then a special premium costume for Viewtiful Joe (Rashid) would certainly fit that bill. We already know that “Viewtiful Joe” is somehow tied to Extra Mode, so its possible we’ll actually be able to play as him in some capacity.

Of course, it’s possible that this is just a mere costume and all of Rashid’s moves will look exactly the same. While such a reality would be disappointing, the presence of that costume alone would still have interesting implications for other potential “special premium costumes.” It would be cool to see other popular Capcom characters show up as premium costumes, especially ones from franchises that have been forgotten in recent years, such as Breath of Fire’s Fou-Lu or Rival Schools’ Batsu.

At that point you could probably just argue that they should be playable in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (if you haven’t already), but seeing Viewtiful Joe or any of the older Capcom characters in any capacity would be welcome nowadays.

Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition launches Jan. 16, 2018.