The next three DLC characters for Street Fighter 5 leaked in advance of their expected announcement at Evo 2019 before Capcom confirmed their existence mere hours later. The annual fighting game tournament isn't scheduled to start until this weekend, beginning the morning of August 2 and running through the night of August 4.
Street Fighter 5 was first launched in February 2016 with a total of 16 playable characters on the roster. At the time, this was a marked decrease from even the earliest roster total of Street Fighter 4. However, Capcom vowed to support Street Fighter 5 with a wide variety of DLC fighters over the course of the game's lifetime, and the developer has been making good on that promise. Street Fighter 5 has received three additional seasons of content and an Arcade Edition rerelease, expanding the game's current roster to 35 playable fighters. Eight of the DLC characters have been newcomers and the rest have been highly requested veterans, but the game still didn't have all of the classic World Warriors - at least until now.
After accidentally leaking the announcement on Street Fighter 5's Steam page, Capcom has now confirmed the next three DLC fighters for the game. E. Honda, Lucia, and Poison will come to SF5 on August 4, presumably by the end of Evo finals. The characters will be available for download individually, but can also be bought together in a Summer 2019 Character Bundle on August 5. The fact that Capcom is calling this a "character bundle" instead of "Season 4" might imply that the game will no longer have five-character DLC seasons, and Capcom may end up releasing its finished DLC characters at different intervals.
Capcom has also uploaded a trailer for all three new characters to YouTube, which was probably meant to be shown for the first time during Evo finals. The jolly sumo wrestler E. Honda is the last of the World Warriors to be added to the game, with every other character from the original Street Fighter 2 already available. Lucia is technically a newcomer to Street Fighter, but she first appeared in the SNES beat-em-up Final Fight 3. Poison also originated from Final Fight, but she has already appeared in Ultra Street Fighter 4 and the ill-regarded Street Fighter X Tekken.
There's no doubt that some SF5 players have been asking for E. Honda for a while, but the general reaction to Street Fighter 5 reveals is getting more and more tepid. Capcom previously said it would have a big announcement for Evo 2019, and even if this information hadn't leaked early, it still would've been comparatively disappointing for everyone speculating. Some people were hoping that Capcom would finally leave Street Fighter 5 behind by announcing Street Fighter 6, and other diehards were even praying for the reveal of a new Marvel vs. Capcom game. There are still a few major Evo announcements coming from other developers, but Capcom has played it safe and predictable for another year in a row.
Source: Capcom