I got the chance to speak with the director and producer of Street Fighter 6, Takayuki Nakayama and Shuhei Matsumoto, who shed some light on the surprising inspiration behind M. Bison’s horse in the series’ latest game.

M. Bison is the next character coming to Street Fighter 6’s roster, making a psycho-powered comeback after his supposed demise in Street Fighter V.

However, the Emperor of Evil has undergone some notable changes in his visual design since the last game — most notably, the fact that he’s got long hair, is covered in a shadowy cowl, and rides into battle on horseback.

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This marks a major change from the way Bison has been presented in previous games, as the Shadaloo leader was almost always depicted teleporting wherever his black heart so desired.

I spoke with Street Fighter 6’s director, Takayuki Nakayama and producer, Shuhei Matsumoto, about the changes to Bison’s design — and most importantly, why the heck he’s on a horse now.

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Fighting game fans might be surprised to learn that the inspiration behind Bison’s new equine companion actually comes from the Street Fighter II V manga published in 1995, which serves as an adaptation of an anime of the same name that loosely follows the events of Street Fighter II: Turbo.

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In the comic, Bison is depicted making his debut riding a black horse while watching events unfold from the shadows, saying that Ryu will make a “perfect pawn” for his evil plan.

Of course, that’s not the only callback referenced in Bison’s new design. Fans have already drawn comparisons to the painting in the villain’s mansion from the Street Fighter II live-action movie, which shows the Shadaloo leader on horseback in the style of Napoleon Crossing the Alps, a famous painting of the French warlord atop a galloping steed.

“There is a scene in Japanese comics where Bison rides a horse. So it felt like a good match,” Nayakama told me. “There is that, like, the reference to the movie, and there’s also another reference to a Japanese manga series.”

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Related:

Street Fighter 6 roster: Base game fighters, DLC 2, DLC 1 & more

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“There is kind of an affinity between Bison and his horse,” he continued. “And the background of how he meets the horse will be disclosed later when you play the arcade mode of the game.”

That wasn’t the only surprising tidbit about Bison’s design that the devs discussed with me. When asked about how they decided upon his new look, Nakayama referenced an earlier draft of the villain that was initially used in development for Street Fighter V, which showed him completely overtaken by Psycho Power — something he says they wanted to expound upon in Street Fighter 6.

“There were a lot of designs we tried out, and I’d like to share some of those in the near future,” Nakayama said. “How should I put it? There’s a part in Street Fighter V where we drew a body that was completely destroyed. We’d like to revive it from there.

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“In terms of his current design, it’s definitely related to the context behind the story of what happened in Street Fighter V, getting defeated by Ryu, because this is Bison’s return coming back not literally from the dead, but from a different position. So, we hope that would reflect in his current design.”

While this is far from the first time Bison’s appeared in a rather shaggy state (see his alternate costumes in Street Fighter IV & V), this is the first time the series’ main villain is rocking the look off-rip, and his gameplay is reflective of this.

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In terms of where Bison lands in Street Fighter 6’s meta, the devs are encouraging Modern control players to get a grip on Psycho Power… as well as play some “mind games” with their opponents. Bison has some new moves, some of which are fresh takes on previous attacks like Psycho Mind, which borrows from his V-Trigger 2 in SFV.

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“In terms of intention, we wanted to keep the classic, Bison-esque moves and make them feel good,” Nakayama explained. “With Psycho Mine, we want to kind of create this element of like playing mind games, because once you do land a Psycho Mine against an opponent, in order to dismantle it, they have to actually land hit against Bison.

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It forces them to get like a little bit aggressive and try to land a hit. Those kinds of mind games were an element we wanted to have with Bison’s gameplay.”

Players will notice straight away that Bison’s Double Knee Press has been changed from a charge movement to a fireball motion, which Nakayama said was to help differentiate between the two similar moves, as well as give some leeway to those using the Modern control scheme as the inputs are a bit different from Classic controls.

“His Psycho Crusher and Double Knee Press were both kind of similar types of moves. They made Bison approach the opponent and move forward, and they both had a similar usage, so the intention was to differentiate a little more between the two of them.

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“With Psycho Crusher still being a charge move, it takes a little bit longer to actually execute, so we wanted to make that a little bit stronger compared to Double Knee Press. Not only that, we wanted to cater to Modern control players, because how you do a charge move versus a command move in Modern is a little bit different, as well. We wanted each move to have its own uniqueness and identity and differentiate them from each other.”

After getting to try out Bison for myself at Summer Game Fest, I can say with certainty that this new Bison still feels like his old self in spite of learning a few new tricks; full of powerful pressuring tools and a lot of damaging moves that will leave opponents throwing their hands in the air. Gwahaha!

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Bison officially comes to Street Fighter 6 on June 26 as the first fighter of Season 2, followed by guest fighters Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, and later, Street Fighter III’s very own Elena.

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