I’m not sure I can explain exactly why, but there’s something particularly interesting to war game players about about the initial character selection screens.

We got a little bit of new Street Fighter 6 news today at Capcom Spotlight UK ShowAnd while it wasn’t the focal point of said news, we couldn’t help but notice that an entire character selection screen of 18 fighters appeared in the game for only a brief moment.

While we’re all certain that more characters will be added as DLC over the coming months and years, Street Fighter 6 will have an initial 18 roster members when it releases on June 2 of this year.

They are arranged in a group of four by four with the game’s protagonist, Locke, and his rival, Jimmy, on top of the rest. Character designer Kaname Fujioka stated that these two characters are intended to stand as something of a modern Ryu and Ken as the franchise introduces a new, younger ranger of new faces.

Four more of the game’s six new characters make up the next row with Manon, Kimberly, Marissa, and Lily sitting directly below Luke and Jamie. JP, Juri, Dee Jay, and Cammy make up the next row down, and then it’s all the World Warriors (in their original SF2 character selection order) from there.

Ryu, E. Honda, Blanka, and Guile make up the penultimate row, then Ken, Chun-Li, Zangief, and Dhalsim close things up. Not only did we get to see the fighters, but we got a quick glimpse of the selected stage as well.

There are 16 initial arenas in which players can choose to battle in SF6 including Metro City Downtown, Genbu Temple, Carrier Byron Taylor, Tian Hong Yuan, Ranger’s Hut, Dhalsimer Temple, Old Town Market, Bathers Beach, Fete Foraine, Colosseo and Barmaley Works Steel, Thunderfoot Settlement, King Street, The Macho Ring, and The Training Room.

Check out screenshots of the start menu character and stage select screens by clicking on the thumbnails here:

Click on images for larger versions

Street Fighter 6 is set to release on June 2nd, 2023 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Series X | S, PC, and Arcade (Japan only).