Capcom had a number of characters that they had planned to include into Street Fighter V that simply did not make the cut for one reason or another. Recently a blog detailed a number of fighters that ended up on the cutting room floor for Capcom's premier fighter.
Polygon picked up the news from over on the Capcom Fighters Network website, where a blog post from Street Fighter V director Takayuki Nakayama details some of the more unique characters they had planned for the game and why they ended up getting cut.
They had eight characters planned in total, starting with a Literary Master who seems to look eerily like German poet Wilhelm Busch. He certainly does look the literary type, no doubt. He used wits and cunning in his fighting style, but they felt he wasn't powerful enough and was cut from the game. He's definitely more of an SNK-style fighter, especially if he didn't have any special fireballs or projectiles.
Next on the list happened to be a "Fighting President". The character is exactly as the name implies. He was to be a "fighting politician" not unlike Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance or Mr. President from Metal Wolf Chaos. He looked pretty lame and I can see why he was cut.
Next on the list was Clumsy Cutie, a mechanic who used tools to fight. However, she was very clumsy with her tools and would manage to rip up her clothes throughout the fight. Nakayama mentions that the designs for her outfit and style was later used for the groundwork from which the new character Laura was built.
Miss Babo was another scrapped character because her muscular frame and tough attitude later translated into Laura's design in Street Fighter V.
They also had a "Soccer Fighter" who used soccer balls as projectiles. He would have been a male Brazilian fighter to represent the South American country. However, they later decided to make Laura the Brazilian rep and they scrapped "Soccer Fighter" because they felt he was too close to Roberto from Rival Schools, a franchise that never really got off the ground beyond a single game, and has been dormant for more than 15 years.
One character that really stood out was a design based around Aliens Vs. Predator. You can check out the image below.
As you can see, he borrows from the Predator's dreadlocks and has some technical armor and padding. He was designed to be a Shadaloo Prototype Soldier. They called him "idyllic" and ended up cutting him from the roster. It's interesting that Capcom would draw inspiration from way back in the 1990s when they had the license to make Aliens Vs Predator games. The one arcade game they made was well done and was a cool beat-'em-up title for up to three players. It ran on their coveted CPS2 board that birthed some of their most well-rounded, 2D fighting games to date.
They also detailed two other characters that didn't make the cut... an evil teacher who wasn't evil enough and used poison attacks and dark weapons. His design would later be iterated into F.A.N.G.
And the final character on the list is Gen's Disciple. This guy had a lot of potential, especially his second outfit. He would have rivaled Akuma, seeking to get revenge against the demon fighter. As Gen's disciple he would have had access to the "Assassin Fist". This guy could have been a cool addition to Street Fighter V, but sadly he didn't make the cut.
