Street Fighter V Content Guide PlayStation 4 PS4 Road Map 1

For our money, Street Fighter V is easily the best brawler on the PlayStation 4 – and it may just be one of the greatest fighting games ever made. The sequel's peerless ability to fuse accessibility with tournament tier depth is its true strength, but it does come with a caveat: the single player experience, in its day one state, is lacking. While we encourage you to read our review for a deeper dive into the gameplay mechanics and a general overview of the out-of-the-box content options, we thought that it was important, on the eve of launch, to provide a little more intel about the game's release roadmap.

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What content does Street Fighter V include at launch?

Admittedly, it's slim pickings at launch. The most important part is the character roster, which is 16 fighters strong. The line-up boasts a blend of the familiar (Ryu and Chun-Li), the forgotten (Nash and R. Mika), and the all-new (Laura and F.A.N.G.). Each character comes with a simple story mode, which sees you working your way through a handful of single player bouts peppered with illustrations. Completing a character's story will unlock an alternate costume, which you'll be able to redeem when the store launches in March. Yeah, we're not thrilled about that either…

On the single player side, you'll also have access to a Survival mode, which has four different difficulty courses. This is similar in principle to comparable options in other fighting games, however the one major twist here is that you'll be able to spend points between bouts in order to unlock power-ups and health boosts. This will obviously impact your overall tally, but may help you to reach the end of the course, so there are some risk/reward tactics at play. Completing the various difficulties will unlock alternate costume colours for your character of choice, as well as profile titles.

The game also launches with a training mode where you can put each character through its paces, as well as the obligatory versus mode. Finally – and perhaps most importantly – there's the online mode, which features Ranked and Casual play. You'll be able to join lobbies, but these will only support two players at launch; an eight player option will roll out in March. And, of course, there's the all-important Capcom Fighters Network, which acts as a kind of social network for the game, enabling you to see stats, replays, and other information pertaining to every person playing the title.

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What content is coming soon?

Two modes that are coming "soon after launch" are Targets and Extra Battle. The former mode will see you completing rotating daily challenges to unlock Fight Money – the title's in-game currency – as well as new profile titles and "other cool content". Extra Battle will also launch in a similarly ambiguous timeframe, enabling you to face off against "special CPU bosses". We'd expect more details on both of these in the near future.

March 2016 will see the roll-out of other single player modes: Battle Tips will include demonstrations, tutorials, and gameplay hints for all of the game's main characters, while Trials will enable you to test your mettle against a slew of pre-determined combo challenges. As for the online side, eight person lobbies will be patched in next month, alongside a spectator mode. And Alex will also be added as a playable character, who you'll be able to purchase using Fight Money from the in-game store.

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What about the rest of the year?

Capcom will be adding new characters virtually every month from March through September. It's unclear what the exact roll-out schedule will look like, but we do know that the full roster of additional characters will include: Alex, Guile, Ibuki, Balrog, Juri, and Urien. Alex, as mentioned above, will be available in March. All of the fighters will be available to purchase using the in-game Fight Money, but the pricing structure is yet to be revealed.

A cinematic story expansion will also launch in June. This will be free for everyone who owns the game, and will include fully animated cut-scenes detailing the events between Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter III.

Hopefully this helps provide a clearer picture of what content you'll find in Street Fighter V at launch tomorrow, and whether you want to pick it up now or wait for some of the additions. It goes without saying, but we'll update you when any of the big updates drop – and we'll be sure to let you know in more detail exactly what they bring to the table.