Luke in Street Fighter 6, what's different?

I think it’s fair to say that the team working on Street Fighter 6 has been paying attention to feedback from the community more than previous teams. Street Fighter 6 Director: Takayuki Nakayama, Producer: Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, and Designer: Yusuke Hashimoto have talked about the game, features, and community briefly. Despite everything revealed in the trailer, the team itself is still playing their cards close to their chest. The reason for this secrecy was foreshadowed following the release of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. Yoshinori Ono who, to be honest, I never cared much for his direction of the series, was said to have been rubbing the team the wrong way with his ideas, and development of SF6. He was let go in 2020 to join another company. One of the inescapable things that the studio had done, aside from the silly fat joke characters, and fourth-wall breaking gags, was the insistence of adding blonde haired, blue-eyed characters across Street Fighter IV, and V. 

The global community saw every slot taken by mostly white characters as a missed opportunity. Could there have been a native, Black, brown, Asian, or female character in that spot instead? When Luke was unveiled as the new star of the franchise, Capcom got a lot of heat online. I mention some of the responses on my original take on Luke in Street Fighter V. There was nothing I could have said better  about the disappointment of seeing another blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white character get set to carry the franchise. It had been tried before with Alex in Street Fighter III, and Abel in Street Fighter IV. By the time Luke was announced it was 21 consecutive years of not letting any other minority sit in the driver’s seat. Just for the record Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition had 12 blonde, and light-skinned characters (13 if you count Rainbow Mika).

The amount of native, Black, brown, and minority Street Fighter fans the world over had never been bigger. They were gaining momentum in cartoons, and comics, in the pop culture convention circuit, in the cosplay community, as well as in gaming tournaments. People had followed the series since the original was released. I remember playing with oversized foam buttons in the arcade way back in 1987. Some of these Gen-X players raised their own children on the franchise, and a few had even become grandparents. That’s right! There were third-generation Street Fighter fans being introduced to the series, and many had never even seen an arcade cabinet to begin with! It’s not hard to imagine that the millions of fans around the world were feeling left out of the conversation. Following the pushback on Luke, the leaked lineup for Street Fighter 6 was like night, and day. The new game seems to have five returning blonde, and light skinned characters. More important; it adds zero new ones. There are eight women from around the world, and five of which are brand new characters.

Luke is still central to the plot, but his appearance has been altered somewhat. We get an entirely new take on the young striker in the SF6 trailer. We see Luke punching a heavy bag in the Metro City Gym. He strikes a familiar pose before he smashes the bag with his hardest strike. Wrestling fans would note his pose appears like Kenny Omega's "V-Trigger." Omega is a huge gaming fan, and pro wrestler. He played Cody in the Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition trailer. They gym itself appears to be the very same one that Cody, and Guy were training in at the start of Final Fight more than 30 years ago.

Final Fight was originally dubbed Street Fighter '89. Some of the team that created the original SF had left Capcom to join SNK. They would go on to develop the Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and King of Fighters franchises. The remaining members at Capcom decided to capitalize on the popularity of Double Dragon, and replace Ken, and Ryu with Cody, and Guy respectively. The new game would still feature lots of fighting, but a bigger narrative to go along with it. Arcade owners, and studio heads asked to change the title, and work on a proper SF sequel. Thankfully they did, but many long-time fans were left wondering what if the SF series had gone down the path of an open world brawler. Street Fighter 6 actually seems to be a return to that idea. At least parts of it do. The new leads are Luke, and Jamie, recreating the partnership of a white guy brawler, and lightning quick Asian martial artist. For the most part Luke seems much more approachable in his SF6 makeover. Let’s take a look at how he changed.

Luke’s frame, and build have changed considerably. I always believed that the 3D models featured in SF IV, and V looked too bulky. When every character was hyper-muscular, then none of them really stood out. It was one of the directions that Mr. Ono had supposedly insisted on. If you look at Luke you will notice that his shoulders are not as protruded as before. His hair is not as stringy, and the stars shaved into the sides of his head have been removed. The star tattoos on his forearms have been replaced with scars. The wing tattoo across his chest, and back, are gone, and now represented by a tee shirt instead. I had commented previously that solid black tattoos like these were being appropriated by white nationalists in the USA. It would have been possible for far-right groups to hold up this character as an example of true patriotism. I’m glad that Capcom had the sense to eliminate most of the markings.

Luke had a bandage across his nose previously. This was removed, and replaced with a long scar running over the right side of his face, from the forehead, down to his cheek. You could say that he's not a pretty boy any more. His boxing trunks have given way to training pants. He still looks like an MMA practitioner, but no longer a poster boy for white nationalism. The one thing that didn’t change, and I think is his stand-out feature are his massive forearms, and fists. Exaggerated muscles, oversized hands, and feet had been used in Street Fighter Zero / Alpha in 1995 to convey the adolescent cast. Luke’s forearms are obscenely huge by comparison! He has the biggest forearms in the game, proportionally to his height. They are in fact bigger than his biceps.

This is a cartoon quality that I think works well in the lineup. Characters are not as hyper-muscled as before. They still appear strong, but are nowhere near as bulky as they had been in the past decade. There are more pronounced differences in height, weight, and build. Their bodies were closer to the proportions used in Street Fighter III. In fact I did not see any comedic “fatties” or odd-colored characters in the leaked lineup. I’m willing to bet that the team working on Luke gave him intentionally big forearms, and fists as a nod to Popeye. This would help make him appear as one of the most powerful punchers in the game, even if he wasn’t the tallest.

In case you don’t know Popeye was first seen in the Thimble Theater comic strip in 1929. He was the original cartoon brawler, and capable of superhuman feats almost a decade before the creation of Superman. Most comic, and cartoon fans would agree that Popeye was technically the first superhero. If indeed this influenced the changes to Luke then I appreciate the effort. Much more seems to be going into the development of the SF6 lineup, than the previous two games. Although the rest of the cast has not been finalized, let alone announced, I will be discussing them over the next few weeks. I hope to see you back for those entries. For now I’d like to know your take on Luke. What do you think about this character as the face of SF6? Would you like to see more representation in the game? Is this a bad idea? Let me know your takes in the comments section. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!