Sagat Won't Appear in Street Fighter V, Says Yoshinori Ono

Sagat has appeared in every iteration of the Street Fighter fighting video game series since its start in 1987, but he is not going to be part of Street Fighter V, executive producer Yoshinori Ono said.

"It's because there are many characters that perform similarly. For this launch and its next update, we wanted to have a good balance of characters. Since we didn't want to just blindly increase the number of characters, it was a bitter decision that had to be made," Ono told Japanese gaming blog Hachima.

Sagat was initially a "boss" character in early editions of the game, but became a playable character starting with 1992's Street Fighter II': Champion Edition. His story with series protagonist Ryu has done a 180-degree turn over the years, going from enemy to calling him a friend in 2008's Street Fighter IV.

Ono noted that fans have taken a liking to these characters, and there remains a "possibility" going forward that Capcom will add more characters to Street Fighter V over time.

"For the time being, we have no plans on releasing any other characters in 2016 outside of the six [DLC] characters that we announced," he said. Those six include an Indian character in Dhalsim who was first showcased at Sony's PlayStation conference at Paris Games Week in October.

Street Fighter V will release on February 16, 2016 for PlayStation 4 and the PC. The game will retail for Rs. 3,999 and Rs. 1,999 respectively for the two systems.