The rouge-wearing rogue, Ken Masters, will look a lot less like his mild-mannered counterpart, Ryu, in the next installment of the long-running series Street Fighter.
Gearing up for the Street Fighter V tournament next year, Ken is rocking a new hairstyle, and he's about to show off some new moves he's learned since the last game.
Matthew Edwards, Capcom's European Fighting Game community manager, introduced the new, somehow more self-confident, Ken to fans on the PlayStation blog on Thursday.
"In Street Fighter V, the Masters family has grown bigger, but this hasn't dulled Ken's martial artistry or his temperament for flashy combos," said Edwards. The groundbreaking V-Skill and V-Trigger are making this new version of Ken bolder and more powerful.
Ken has picked up the Quick Step with Street Fighter V's new V-Skill mechanics, a system of character-specific modifiers that are triggered by medium punch and medium kick.
V-Skills are meant to give players the ability to bolster areas in which specific characters are weak. For Ken, the Quick Step lets him close distance quickly.
"You can cancel the Quick Step at any time, as well as perform additional moves out of it," added Edwards. "It's a versatile technique that takes the iconic Shotokan fighting style and (super) turbo charges it with forward momentum."
For his finishing move, Ken can launch a Heat Rush attack, which requires a full V-Gauge, setting Ken's entire body into an inferno.
The attack, of course, doesn't continue very long, so Edwards advises to make the most out of the momentum and cripple one's opponent while the attack is powered up. Using the combo will ensure the enemies' health deteriorates significantly. These turbo skills can also be used to turn one's fate around and stage a comeback against one's opponents.
Now there's a lot more separating Ken and Ryu than a few moves and their hair color.
Street Fighter V arrives in 2016 on the PC and PlayStation 4. The Xbox One console is left out of this one, including any Ultra or Arcade editions of the game, a Capcom spokesperson stated last month.
"We are console exclusive for this franchise for this numbered run," the spokesperson said.
While awaiting Street Fighter V's unspecified launch date, watch Ken get busy in the video below:
