The recent release of the Street Fighter IV benchmark tool sparked a new round of roster buzz once curious people started probing its innards for secrets. Some odd announcer audio files were uncovered: one for Dee Jay and one for T. Hawk. This led to speculation that the long-rumored characters could be included with the PC release of the game.
Alas, Dee Jay and T. Hawk are not coming and will not be included in the PC version of the game. Speaking with me today, Capcom’s Seth Killian flatly dismissed the new round of questions about the potential of roster additions. “No,” he said, “T. Hawk and Dee Jay aren’t coming to PC SFIV.”
It appears that the audio files are indeed nothing more than stray data — leftovers from decisions made in the game’s development. Killian pointed me to a message board response he gave after Capcom’s Ono-san mentioned the stray data for the first time (and started the first downloadable content rumors.)
“And just to stave off the rumor train here, no, that doesn’t mean there are a bunch of finished or semi-finished characters sitting around just waiting to be added as DLC or something,” Killian said. “The level of polish, balance, and refinement that went into SFIV should hopefully make clear the difference between putting in wireframes and some rudimentary collision and being anywhere near a finished, living, breathing SFIV character.”
So, there you go: Capcom won’t be adding new characters. Good thing, too — T.Hawk is mad stupid. Blue jean jackets and large belt buckles are so 1991.
