One of the interesting side effects of last week’s Street Fighter 5 Spring Update event was that it got the fighting game community back to talking about the last DLC character planned for the title, even though it looked like it was a more than anyone else was.
After watching the broadcast, some fans were immediately convinced that the fifth fighter of Season 5 would be none other than Crimson Viper, but unfortunately the arguments for this don’t seem to hold up for several reasons.
The ‘smoking gun’ for most of these Viper hopefuls came from Rose’s portion of the presentation where the fortune teller’s tarot deck was shown as her unique win screen.
While the first card tossed to the screen belonged to Karin, Street Fighter 4’s Newbie appeared in the front and center of the second card, probably making everyone do a double hit.
My assumption is that these true believers assumed that every character in the game would appear on the SF tarot designs, as that would normally make sense, but that’s not the case at all.
Instead, this deck is based on an actual set of tarot cards released by Capcom in the Special Japanese Edition of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection.
Both Karin and C. Viper’s designs were taken straight from those earlier designs, and there’s even a brand new one on display right after with both Rose and Menat on the anomalous 30 arcana number – perhaps in reference to the 30th anniversary. self.
Before the Season 5 character revealed last summer, some had even then speculated that the remaining tarot card members would make up the DLC roster because there were five that weren’t in SF5: Rose, Oro, Elena, Rolento, and C. Viper.
Obviously, Dan and Akira immediately blew that theory out of the water in August, but the mystery of character number 45 remains.
That tarot card denial alone would typically not be enough to almost completely discredit C. Viper’s potential for inclusion, being one of the most in-demand candidates left on the sidelines, but that’s not the only reason why we’re sure she’s not gonna make it.
The most important detail there lies in the official roadmap Capcom released during the first summer update last August.
In the fall of 2021, the schedule’s end, the “?” character is shown to have three suits. However, why is this important?
Looking at the rest of the season’s roster, Rose and Akira each have five additional outfits, while Oro and Dan only have three.
It’s not exactly solid confirmation either, but that suggests that the last fighter is also a man – disqualifying Viper once again.
For over five years, Street Fighter fans have widely expected the special agent to return in the latest iteration, as she was one of the most popular newcomers to SF4.
Viper also made it to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 via Juri, Seth, Rufus and Abel, so the developers seemed to have a lot of faith in the character before too.
Technically, she’s appeared in at least four character stories within SF5 and seems to be the one that pops up the most that’s still not playable – except maybe Azam or something.
So, what do we know about the latest Street Fighter 5 member? Pretty much nothing except the fact that they are likely to be male – everyone knows Capcom would jump at the chance to sell some Viper costumes as well.
The development and marketing teams have been very careful not to divulge too much information to even hint their identity with the latest official blog posts for the spring update referring to them as the mystery / unknown character.
We probably won’t have to wait too long to find out exactly who they are, as Capcom has pretty much already confirmed that there will be a new summer update airing in the coming months, in which they seem to be teasing that the fifth fighter will . likely to be unmasked alongside new images of Oro and Akira.
While it may seem extremely small, there is still the possibility that Viper will make Street Fighter 5, but I certainly wouldn’t put any money on that bet.