Ultra Street Fighter 4's new character is female, tipster teases relation to comics

Ultra Street Fighter 4's mysterious roster addition is female and related to the comics somehow, according to the latest teases.

Series lead Yoshinori Ono announced the new character's gender at Capcom Cup, with producer Tomoaki Ayano confirming in a Famitsu interview translated by Shoryuken late last year.

It looks like Retsu has been ruled out, despite appearing in art related to the game; Ayano also noted that it's "just a rumour" that the new character's name starts with R.

Meanwhile, Siliconera, which has published multiplae Capcom leaks proved accurate after the fact, has received a tip that the character appears in the Street Fighter comics - presumably the Japanese manga.

Shoryuken suspects Sarai Kurosawa, a friend of Ibuki who appeared in the UDON manga series and Ibuki’s Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike ending, and made a cameo in Street Fighter x Tekken.

As well as the mystery fifth character, Ultra Street Fighter 4 adds Elena, Hugo, Poison and Rolento to the cast; all four appeared in Street Fighter x Tekken, which may be another reason to favour Sarai, although Capcom insists the USF4 characters aren't ripped from SFxT.

The publisher has said that the new character is a canonical Street Fighter character who has never appeared in playable form, and although she's a "perfect fit" for the series, she's not "on anyone's radar".

Ultra Street Fighter 4 will be available in northern spring as a $40 standalone retail purchase or a $15 DLC upgrade to the existing game for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It’s not coming to PS4, Wii U or Xbox One.