Street Fighter 6 Heats Up With Guest Character Mai Shiranui

Capcom has officially released the gameplay trailer for Street Fighter 6’s latest guest character, Mai Shiranui.

Mai is shown using her familiar moves on old rivals/friends Chun Li and Ryu, as well as against a fighter who wasn’t around for the Capcom vs. SNK days, Juri. Mai is also shown wearing her familiar costume. As a fun piece of trivia, her blouse isn’t actually intended to be a kimono. It’s actually supposed to look like an uwagi, AKA a martial arts uniform like karate and aikido practitioners use.

Mai will be joining Street Fighter 6’s cast this February 5. She will be part of the Year 2 Character Pass and Ultimate Pass, but she can also be purchased separately with Fighter Coins.

Mai is also shown wearing her leather top and pants, an outfit introduced in her announcement trailer for SNK’s Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Given that Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves releases in April, it’s quite transparent that Mai and her in-law Terry Bogard were brought into Street Fighter 6 to help promote the latter game.

And that points to an interesting direction for both Capcom and SNK to take their relationship. For those who don’t remember, Capcom and SNK initially worked out a deal to make crossover games together because SNK was the side needing money, following growing difficulties with their business.

While Capcom and SNK developers were eager to use each other’s characters, they didn’t actually coordinate that closely on how those deals were going to work out. The end result was more favorable to Capcom than SNK, with the Capcom Vs. SNK series proving more fruitful than the crossover games SNK made, such as digital CCG SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash.

Fans hyped about these crossovers have been asking why we still aren’t seeing a Capcom Vs. SNK 3 yet, or possibly a new SNK Vs. Capcom, but I think that’s missing the forest for the trees. Regardless of where Terry and Mai end up in Street Fighter 6’s meta, these crossovers are intended to tie the two fighting game franchises more closely together.

This is an arrangement intended to benefit both parties, and hopefully could lead to closer collaborations in the future. So who knows? We may end up with so many guest characters between Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves that they effectively act as the new Vs. games for both sides.

Mai will be joining Street Fighter 6’s cast this February 5. She will be part of the Year 2 Character Pass and Ultimate Pass, but she can also be purchased separately with Fighter Coins. In the meantime, you can watch her official gameplay trailer below.