Capcom Unveils Street Fighter IV

After several years of fan speculation, Capcom has officially announced development of Street Fighter IV: A New Beginning, although apart from an animated teaser trailer, no further information has been revealed concerning formats or release dates. According to Capcom, the game has only recently entered production and is not expected to be released until after 2008. The trailer, which can be viewed at official website Street Fighter World, features famous protagonists Ryu and Ken fighting, with an art style somewhat reminiscent of Capcom’s own Okami. No format information was given for the title, including whether it will first debut in arcades. It is also unclear whether the game will retain the 2D sprite based combat of the original games, use 3D graphics on a 2D plane or feature full 3D gameplay and graphics. The game was unveiled at a London based press event yesterday, which also featured one other previously announced title and a new port of an existing Capcom game. However, a news embargo was placed on this additional information until Friday morning GMT, with websites featuring the information being forced to remove it today. The new announcements follow the unveiling of an update of classic franchise Bionic Commando on Tuesday, which features development input from Capcom’s U.S. and Japanese offices as well as third party Swedish developer GRIN. The development team behind Street Fighter IV has not yet been revealed.