How does Street Fighter fit into the other films and games?

Mortal Kombat II and now Street Fighter? 2026 is a good year to be a fan of classic fighting games as it turns out.

The latest adaptation of the hit Capcom brawler is set to hit the big screen this month and it's hoping for a little more success than the 1994 version.

Directed by Kaito Sakurai, Street Fighter faithfully brings to life many of the games' most iconic characters including Ryu, Ken Masters, Chun-Li and more, in what the trailers promise to be a colourful and action-packed ode to the source material.

The new film is a reboot of the franchise, seemingly bringing to life a whole new story that sits alongside the world of the games without directly adapting any of the main-line titles.

That being said, the cast and crew have promised that the film is faithful to the games both visually and canonically.

Still, the Street Fighter universe is huge, with seven main-line games and numerous spin-offs as well as books, comics and two previous live-action efforts (including the Jean-Claude Van Damme film), making it hard to know where exactly the latest outing fits in.

Don't worry, we're readied up and right here to break it all down for you.

The easy answer is, the latest Street Fighter movie simply doesn't fit into the previous films and games. The 2026 Street Fighter draws from all of the games in some capacity, placing Ken Masters and Ryu at the heart of its story in a way we haven't seen before in any of the previous live-action efforts, but the new film is very much its own thing.

The 2026 film centres on the relationship between Ken and Ryu, leaning into their friendship and conflict for some of its more memorable fight scenes in the build-up to the tournament.

Like the Mortal Kombat reboot from 2020, Street Fighter is inspired-by the games more than it is a direct adaptation, though all the familiar villains and fighters from its colourful roster are there and ready to compete in the World Warrior Tournament.

Prior to the reboot, there have been two other attempts to bring Street Fighter to live-action with Van Damme's 1994 version being the most high profile. In 2009, Capcom attempted to reboot the franchise with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which was a flop with both audiences and critics leaving the franchise in limbo for over a decade.

Thankfully, the latest film has wiped the cinematic slate clean in an attempt to more authentically adapt the gameplay, characters, environments and even iconic moves from across the nearly 40-year-old franchise.

We do know that various characters from the games will make their way on screen in the film, including a wonderfully game-accurate Guile (Cody Rhodes), Vega (Orville Peck) and iconic villain M Bison (David Dastmalchian).

We're sure that there will be more surprises for Street Fighter fans, but we'll have to wait for the film to find out.

Street Fighter is in cinemas from Friday 16 October 2026.

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