With the first wave of DLC for Street Fighter 6 nearly concluded, we’re beginning to observe a pattern with how Capcom has been releasing their DLC fighters. First they drop a teaser trailer for the character, then they’ll either release a Fighting Pass celebrating their arrival or their gameplay trailer, and then they’ll finally release the fighter.
Notably, the Rashid Arrive Fighting Pass, A.K.I. Fighting Pass, and Ed Fighting Pass were all released at the beginning of their respective months. By the end of each month, the character was available in the game.
As of right now, the Akuma Fighting Pass has yet to be announced, but there’s evidence and even a hint that this could be happening sooner than expected. In other words, the Akuma Fighting Pass could be released as soon as tomorrow or the next day.
Over on the Japanese Twitter account, a couple of shots of Akuma were posted with the tagline simply saying “April 1.” To be clear, April Fool’s Day is a thing in Japan, though it’s not quite as recognized as it is here in North America.
Of course, April 1 has not been documented to be Akuma’s birthday. Instead, his birthdate is simply noted as being “unknown,” much like many other details and facts regarding Akuma in the Street Fighter lore.
However, it should be noted that the English Street Fighter Twitter account has not made a similar Tweet that connects Akuma to April 1.
👹4月1日👹 pic.twitter.com/kOuEXO0RuT
— ストリートファイター / STREET FIGHTER (@StreetFighterJA) March 31, 2024
As it so happens, a maintenance period is scheduled to take place tonight at 10 p.m. PDT and last for about three hours — into the early hours of April 1. There currently isn’t any information about what this maintenance period is for, but the release of the Akuma Arrives Fighting Pass is beginning to look like a viable guess.
[Notice] #StreetFighter 6 server maintenance will take place during the time below. This maintenance is expected to last around 3 hours.
March 31 at 10PM PDT
April 1 at 6AM BST— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) March 29, 2024
By logging into Street Fighter 6, fans are told outright that the next fighting pass is scheduled to begin on April 1 at 0:00. The fighting pass that came before this was the “Mega Man Gala Fighting Pass,” which didn’t actually have anything to do with the arrival of a DLC character.
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The official Japanese Street Fighter Twitter account leaving that Akuma hint is indicative that the next fighting pass is to be the Akuma Arrives Fighting Pass. This would also fit with how the previous arrival fighting passes have been handled considering that they always happened near the beginning of a month.
It should be noted that the Rashid Arrives Fighting Pass was launched on July 4, 2023. 20 days later, Rashid was made available as a playable character in Street Fighter 6 on July 24, 2023.
The A.K.I. Arrives Fighting Pass went live on September 1, 2023. She’d later become available to purchase and use starting on September 27, 2023.
Finally, there’s the Ed Arrives Fighting Pass that dropped on February 1, 2024. Ed would then become a playable character for those that downloaded him starting on February 27, 2024.
This suggests that we could be due for Akuma’s gameplay trailer very soon. As alluded to before, gameplay trailers for DLC characters have thus far been released either a few days before or a few days after their corresponding arrival fighting pass.
With all of this in mind, Capcom may be revving up for Akuma’s release window somewhere between April 22 and April 30. Previously, characters have been released on the Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday of a week, so it’ll probably be on one of those days.
We’ll have to see how things unfold from here, but it’s looking likely that we’ll be getting more information about Akuma very soon.