Concept art of Rufus (then named King Cobra), having a completely different appearance, originally being a much younger, buff black guy whose fighting style was originally going to be more like some sort of kung-fu-breakdance fusion, before being eventually changed into a middle-aged, obese, white, self taught martial artist.
- Street Fighter II:
- Mike Haggar from Final Fight was originally planned to initially appear as the game's wrestling character and through this, his appearance would've helped connect the two series together (a concept that would later be used with the appearances of Guy, Sodom, Rolento, Cody, Maki, Hugo, and Poison in both the Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter III sub-series respectively), but later on in development, he was replaced by Zangief after the creative team had noticed that there were already three other American fighters (Ken, Guile, and Balrog) in the game. Zangief was also originally going to be named "Vodka Gobalsky".
- T. Hawk's proposed name was Geronimo, but a member of the American development team suggested that they change it to something else.
- Two of the four new fighters in Super Street Fighter II were originally meant to be Head Swaps of each other, which would've consisted of two Kung Fu twin brothers from Hong Kong who would be very similar yet different from one another. James Goddard argued against the idea (since Ryu and Ken were already head swaps of one another), leading to the two brothers being reworked into a single Kung Fu fighter, Fei Long, and the creation of an entirely new fourth fighter, Dee Jay. Also, they pitched the names "Mantis" and "JJ Bam" for the character who would eventually became Dee Jay, as well as intending for "Mantis" to be written along his pants; they settled on "Maximum" instead because it would still be readable when his sprite was flipped. The initial concept of the two Kung Fu twin brothers would eventually make it later on in the series via Yun and Yang in Street Fighter III.
- A few proposed gameplay mechanics never made it in, such as characters having weak points, characters taking more damage while dizzied, the ability to duck underneath projectiles, and the ability to perform juggle combos.
- Remnants have been discovered
for a League mode in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Similar to Super Street Fighter II's tournament mode, the game would have pit players fighting each other in a Round Robin system.
- Street Fighter III:
- The game was initially meant to be a clean slate from the previous installments, with none of the original cast returning, hence the subtitle of the first game in the sub-series, New Generation. However, Capcom had ended up not going through with this initial plan and eventually included both Ryu and Ken in order to avoid potential fan backlash, with Akuma and Chun-Li following suit and returning to the roster as well in the respective 2nd Impact and 3rd Strike Updated Rereleases. Originally, Sean was supposed to have been the only Shotoclone character in the game (effectively being the successor to Ryu and Ken), and had this happened, he might not have been Nerfed so hard or regarded as a joke.
- Dan was considered for the roster at one point.
- Hugo was meant to appear in New Generation, and Shin Akuma in 3rd Strike. Hugo later made it into 2nd Impact, but Shin Akuma was left out of 3rd Strike.
- A poison-using fighter was planned, but was ultimately replaced with Remy. The idea would later be revisited with F.A.N.G. in Street Fighter V.
- Gill was originally planned to wield light and darkness, but Capcom had decided to have him use fire and ice instead as it would be a much better demonstration of their new CPS-III arcade hardware. His secondary color is a reference to the original direction.note
- Before Dudley was conceived, there were many possible designs for a boxer character to use. One of them in particular appears to be an early version of Tiffany Lords.
- Street Fighter Alpha:
- Alpha 3 was originally going to have Joe (from the original Street Fighter) as the escaped prisoner fighter, which would've continued Alpha's pattern of bringing back and re-introducing forgotten SF1 characters as the previous revisions had already done with Adon, Birdie, and Gen. However, he was dropped and replaced with Cody from Final Fight.
- Karin, Sakura's rival, was originally supposed to debut in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter similarly to how Shadaloo Cammy first appeared in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. An early version of her sprite can be found in the game's data, which reveals that she was originally planned to be a simple head swap of Sakura.
- Street Fighter IV:
- Dee Jay and T. Hawk were meant to appear in the first iteration of the game.
- The Super Street Fighter IV artbook proves that Strider Hiryu was originally going to be an alternate outfit for Guy.
- In the case of Abel and Rufus, their original designs were very different, especially the latter: Abel was originally a judo practitioner with a "the weak can beat the strong" gimmick. He was also a teenager and could be mistaken for a girl◊. As for Rufus, instead of being a middle-aged, obese white guy who taught himself kung-fu, he was originally a young, thin (yet muscular) black male who combined his kung-fu skills with breakdancing, calling it "breakung-fu". He was◊ originally named "King Cobra"◊ and had a rivalry with Ken, although it most likely wouldn't have been Played for Laughs as it is with the version of him that made it into the game. All in all, he was redesigned, because the developers wanted an absurd, over-the-top design that would "freak people out". What's left of Cobra in the final release of Street Fighter IV is his gi, which is Ken's 1st DLC costume while the concept of his fighting style has been passed on to the newcomer Jamie in Street Fighter 6, who incorporates his breakdancing skills with Drunken Boxing.
- Karin, Elena and R. Mika were all considered for Super Street Fighter IV, and while Elena eventually made it into Ultra, the other two would have to wait until Street Fighter V for their next-gen debut.
- For the initial brainstorming session for Street Fighter IV, there was an idea for a character that never made it past the idea board: Karate Klown.
- Street Fighter X Tekken:
- Dan and Anna were initially considered for the main character roster, but the two of them were eventually rejected.
- Master Chief and Marcus Fenix were considered for the Xbox 360 edition, but bad timing led to them being unavailable for use.
- Classic Mega Man was considered, but Keiji Inafune vetoed this, as he felt the idea was uninteresting and had already been done in the Marvel vs. Capcom games. This is what led to the inclusion of Bad Box Art Mega Man instead.
- Nathan Drake was considered as a potential guest character for the PlayStation 3 version, but Cole McGrath was chosen instead because his abilities fit a fighting game better.
- Street Fighter V:
- The game was originally going to have a much more realistic visual style in the vein of Tekken or Mortal Kombat. Ryu's shirtless and bearded "Hot Ryu" look was going to be his default design, with the idea being that he'd only recently returned to civilization after an extended period training in the mountains. M. Bison/Dictator also would've sported a radical redesign with slicked back white hair and glowing purple Tron Lines. This build of the game was shelved due to worries about the photorealistic visuals being too big of a departure, as well as concerns that the more naturalistic body proportions made it difficult to tell what was going on during the fights.
- Sodom from Final Fight was considered for the launch roster, but Capcom couldn't think of a way to work him into the story.
- Necalli was originally going to eat his opponents, but this was considered too violent for a T-rated game.
- Numerous concepts were considered but abandoned, including a President Fighter (who looked suspiciously like Bison's Legend of Chun-Li incarnation. However, this concept was able to make it into second wave of DLC in the form of G, the "President of the World"), a Literary Master (a Badass Bookworm), Careless Sexy-chan (a dark-skinned young woman who'd accidentally tear up her own clothes during battle; the character eventually became Laura), Gen's disciple (Exactly What It Says on the Tin), a football-themed female fighter from America and a hockey-themed female fighter from Canada, a Yeti (rejected for seeming like something out of Darkstalkers rather than Street Fighter), a Brazilian Soccer Fighter (rejected for being too similar to Roberto from Rival Schools), Asuka (a young, female aikido practitioner who looked suspiciously like Hokuto from Street Fighter EX; rejected because the game already had too many Japanese fighters), Elizabeth (a wealthy French savate user; rejected because Karin's inclusion made another rich girl character redundant), and a South American assassin (rejected in favor of Necalli).
- Momotaro, a character from a very early Capcom arcade game called Pirate Ship Higemaru, was considered but ultimately dropped.
- Menat went through several potential iterations before the concept of an Egyptian fortune teller was chosen. One idea was that she'd be Rita, an Italian schoolgirl delinquent with a passion for manga and cosplay. Other ideas included her as a magician who could create birds made of Soul Power, a rhythmic gymnast, an Egyptian stick fighter and a cutsey redheaded "pizza assassin" in the vein of B.B. Hood.
- A Tweet from Ed Boon confirmed that there were many attempts to have Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat crossover, but he didn't reveal any details beyond that.
