Some strange things have been happening in the world of Street Fighter V in previous weeks. Various eagle-eyed fans of the upcoming beat ’em up have noticed in the game’s most recent showings that animations for certain characters have been changed or removed entirely, seemingly without reason.
After so long in the dark though, the game’s producer Yoshinori Ono has broken silence on the changes, telling UOL Jogos why the studio decided to change certain scenes. The interview, conducted in Portuguese, was translated by a member of NeoGAF and reads:
We want the professional players and the casual fans of the series to return, but we also want to reach those who have never even touched a fighting game. So we can’t have something in the game that makes people think, This is not acceptable.’
Probably we won’t be able to remove everything that could offend someone. But our goal is, at least, to reduce that number as much as possible so that they think ‘Ok, there is this issue here, but it is within the limits.’ We want that everyone can play and enjoy without worrying about anything else.
It’s not entirely clear how extensive the changes are, but the most notable one was made to R. Mika’s (pictured above on the left) fight introduction, in which she slaps herself on the butt to taunt her opponent.
Despite Ono’s comments, the alterations are sure to ignite debates over the prevalence of censorship on a title that – if history is any indication – is kept out of reach of minors through appropriate age ratings. The issue is sure to evoke strong opinions in both supporters and detractors of whether Capcom should have made the changes and their reasons behind it, so definitely let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
