Street Fighter V is coming out this month, so Capcom has begun its final marketing push before the game hits stores. For most publishers, that push means publishing new trailers, livestreams, blog posts, and, occasionally, they host a party or some other kind of event.
And then there’s Capcom UK, which hired London-based Hip-Hop dance theatre troupe ZooNation to perform a live round-robin-style dance battle called “Street Fighter V Hits London” at a launch event for their game Wednesday. The group dressed up as six fighters, including four classic characters — Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Cammy — and newcomers Laura and Rashid. The fighting is … Well, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a promotional dance performance inspired by a video game.
This is not the first event or installation created by Capcom UK that might have caused North American game fans to scratch their heads, including “Wesker & Son,” a pop-up butcher shop set up in 2012 to promote Resident Evil 6, which sold fake human flesh. While this isn’t nearly as odd, one would have hoped Capcom would have remembered that other companies have tried similar events before, with horrifying results.
Meanwhile, Capcom has teamed up with Machinima for a live-action prequel web series, Street Fighter: Resurrection. The series, which premieres in March, will focus on Charlie Nash and “set the stage” for the story in Street Fighter V, according to Polygon. Releasing the series after the game’s launch may seem a little late, but Capcom has said it intends to play a longer marketing game with Street Fighter V, releasing a “cinematic” single-player story mode for the game in June and releasing a larger number of patches and updates in free updates.
Street Fighter V comes to PlayStation 4 and PC February 16.