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Street Fighter 6 has introduced plenty of new elements to the franchise with brand-new characters being no small part of that. Jamie might be the box art SF character, but Ryu is still really the central protagonist of the series. Until now, that was reflected with the most played Street Fighter characters, as Ryu often came out on top. That’s just changed though. According to some new data, Ken is the most-played Street Fighter character in the latest game!

The cast has expanded and shrank over time, but Ryu in Street Fighter has always remained really popular. His fighting style is one of the most accessible and iconic for the series which has made him the starting point for pretty much every title before 6. Ken has just managed to edge ahead though, becoming the top pick in the latest game!

Ken’s managed to edge it out ahead of Ryu as the most-played Street Fighter character! This is an upset compared to past games, but Ken isn’t the biggest departure. He still has a more balanced move set and is fairly accessible, with a whole set-up pretty similar to Ryu. Ken becoming more popular in 6 might reflect the changes to the characters and how much easier mid-level players are finding the character.

Source: Capcom

This information is coming from Roofiemonger, who has broken down the use rates of the characters as well as their general placements. Ken has become the most-played Street Fighter character, but there are some other interesting takeaways here too.

One major feature of the breakdown is that new characters are all generally quite popular. It seems they’ve been accepted fully by veteran and new players. Characters that are typically thought of as harder to play are lower down on the list too, which roughly matches up. The best characters in Street Fighter 6 for beginners seem to be more popular. it also seems like players who mesh well with modern controls might be performing better than others.

These are the main takeaways from the early data on character usage. Ken becoming the most-played Street Fighter character is definitely a bit of a twist. It might be down to his moveset, or players could be responding to his slightly more dramatic role in the story and prequel comics this time around. It’ll be interesting to see how these stats change as SF 6 ages and we find more out about the meta that emerges for the game. Some SF 6 players like MenaRD are already dominating the game, but things can change fast in new games.